I,!B1!A1!Y OF COXCIRESS. # 









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MTEI) STATES OF AMERICA. J 




(;eok(;e i..\ i;ar. 

IN Ul>, ONK IHNDKII) AM) ^.KVKMI[ VKAR. 



REMINISCENCES 



George La Bar, 

THE 

CENTENARIAN OF MONROE COUNTY, PA., 

WHO IS STILL LIVING IN HIS 107TH YEAR! 



and incidents in the early settlement of the 

pennsylvania side of the river valley, 

from easton to bushkill. 

By a. B. BURRELL. 



|itl| a Ijortniit. 




PHILADELPHIA: 
CLAXTON, REMSEN & HAFFELFINGER, 

819 k 821 Market Street. 
1870. 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by 

CLAXTON, REMSEN & HAFFELFINGER, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States 

in and for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. 

STEREOTYPED BY J. PAGAN & SON. PRINTED BY MOORE BROS. 



la- /7/5^ 



TO THE 

"OLD FOLKS" 

OF NORTHAMPTON AND MONROE, 

WHO BEGAN LIFE IN THE PAST CENTURY, 
AND WHO ARE WITH US TO-DAY, 



Ilu| pile ^o!um£ 



IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED BY 



THE AUTHOR. 





THIS little volume has been drawn together by 
frequent conversations with the aged pilgrim 
with whom those talks were had. His mind operates 
slowly, and in its operations it often slides out of the 
channel upon which it first sets out, upon thoughts or 
topics suggested as he goes along. For this reason 
the book has been divided into chapters, with dates 
somewhat mixed. 

As the old blood becomes sluggish in its flow 
through the system, so, too, the mind, in sympathy 
with the body, loses its earlier elasticity, although, 
like the blood, it still exercises its wonted purpose. 
And this arrano^ement of Nature is well, for thus the 
body and the mind work in unison to the end, and 
that calmness which prepares for the final separa- 
tion of body and soul, comes gently, unconsciously 
on, loosing the hold to earth, and preparing for 
heaven. Oh, how beautiful is this calm, yet cheerful 
spirit of the old ! How it attracts and makes us 
happy to be near such, creating a reverential feeling 



VI PREFACE. 

within us, that makes us forget the toils of life to look 
complacently on the loosing of the " silver cord," and 
the opening to the beautiful land Beulah ! 

The historic part of this volume is, of course, frag- 
mentary, touching here and there the early settle- 
ment of the Pennsylvania side of the river valley 
reaching from Easton to Bushkill. The picture of 
to-day is in wide contrast with that of one hundred 
and seven years ago. Then, the Indians claimed all 
this valley region, and the white settlements only here 
and there showed a clearing, and the struggle for the 
mastery had not closed. Now, the red men are all 
gone, and the evidences of the superiority of our race 
are shown on every hand, proving that the Supreme 
Being had reserved this country for the enterprise 
and development of a new people and a new dis- 
pensation. 

A. B. B. 

Delaware Water Gap, Pa. 




^^'■^ 



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ijji 



CHAPTER I. 

PAGE 

Introductory 9 

CHAPTER II. 
Persecution 12 

CHAPTER III. 

Early Boundaries . . . . . . . .14 

CHAPTER IV. 
The Arrival . . . . . . . . . 20 

CHAPTER V. 
Early Settlers . . . . . . . -27 

CHAPTER VI. 
The Estrangement . . .... . '35 

CHAPTER VII. 
The Smithfields 40 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Rustic Life 53 

Tii 



VIU CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER IX. 

PAGE 

The Revolution ........ 6o 

CHAPTER X. 

After the War ........ 66 

CHAPTER XI. 

A Visit to the Centenarian . . . . -7° 

CHAPTER XII. 

Brother and Sister . . . . . . -77 

CHAPTER XIII. 
Old Stories 8i 

CHAPTER XIV. 
Life in Old Times ....... 86 

CHAPTER XV. 
Religion and Politics ....... 93 

CHAPTER XVI. 

The Comparison . . . . . . . .100 

CHAPTER XVII. 
Numbers T04 

CHAPTER XVIII. 
Conclusion 108 




REMINISCENCES 



OF 



George LaBar. 



CHAPTER I. 



INTRODUCTORY. 



In this frail tenement shall we 

Elude its thousand foes, 
And, zigzag, journey till we see 

A century round us close ? 

AMONG the millions who inhabit this earth 
to-day, how rare it is to find a centenarian ! 
Surrounded as we are by ten thousand hid- 
den by-ways, which terminate in death, it is 
difficult to reach even the " threescore and 
ten," to which all have a right. I say "right," 
because, aside from accidents, our ignorance 
or our follies make us our own suicides — 
if we escape the blunders of our parents — 
while a good Providence is censured for the 
shortened life-term. To see five score is almost 

9 



lO THE CENTENARIAN 

a miracle ; and when we find a rare old relic of 
one hundred and six years, we may well become 
interested in him, and anxiously ask what have 
been his tastes and his habits ? 

Beholding that human form, which bears the 
burden of over a century, no one would ask to 
have his life so lengthened out; and yet few are 
they who have lived so long as they would 
wish. Weakened, tremulous old age has no- 
thing in it to invite us to share and to bear the 
same; and, with the fullest assurance of a blessed 
immortality, there is something so sad, so re- 
pulsive in death, that, palsied and wrinkled, we 
still cling to life, ask for another and yet an-, 
other day, until, pushed off the stage of exist- 
ence, we are gathered to our fathers. 

One hundred and six years back through the 
buried past, and whatchanges, what wonders we 
reach beyond ! What vast, what mighty reve- 
lations have been unfolded during those years ! 
What tornadoes of thought and action have 
swept over nations and societies, building up 
and tearing down, leaving footprints to live in 
history so long as time shall be ! What mira- 
cles of science and civilization ! What strides 
of human progress and development ! 

And all this measured by a life whose sands 
are not exhausted ! Can we still talk w^ith one 
who heard the booming cannons of the Revolu- 
tion, and who participated in the rejoicings after 



OF MONROE COUNTY. 



II 



that trying war was over ? Can we shake hands 
with one who saw the stately Washington ? 
Yes, he Hves, a marvelous volume, a living 
record of one hundred and six years ! Eigh- 
teen such lives would reach back to the time 
of Christ. Only eighteen times for the tale to 
be handed down from sire to son to reach 
through the dim distance ! Eighteen genera- 
tions instead of an average of fifty-seven ! 




12 THE CENTENARIAN 

CHAPTER II. 

PERSECUTION. 

The Indian war-whoop echoed round 

The place where he was born; 
They claimed it as their hunting-ground, 

And theirs to grow their corn : 
The settlers' huts were rough and rude, 

And few and far between, 
Scarce broken Nature's solitude, 

A weird, foreboding scene. 

GEORGE LA BAR, the subject of this 
sketch, was born in the autumn of 1763, 
in Mount Bethel, Northampton County, Penn- 
sylvania, about half-way between Slateford and 
Portland, and half a mile from that road, over- 
looking the Delaware River, and is, therefore, 
in his one hundred and seventh year. 

His grandfather came to this country from 
France, about the year 1730, on account of re- 
ligious persecution. It was persecution that 
had driven the Pilgrim Fathers to the wilds of 
America many years before, and there were 
many to follow still. 

It was Jehovah's gracious plan 
To open here a home for man. 
Where persecution could not bind 
The faithful heart and earnest mind ; 
And here he came, content to dare 
All other evils and to bear, 



OF MONROE COUNTY. I3 

If pleading conscience could be free 
To worship with soul -liberty. 

Just before and immediately after 1730, there 
was a new impetus given to immigration to 
Penn's Colony. They came from Germany, 
France, Ireland, England, and other countries ; 
but nearly all were Dissenters, Protestants, 
under various denominational names. 

A certain kind of Protestantism was pro- 
tected in England, but all forms of vital, earn- 
est, unselfish religion were kept outside the 
pale of humanity, not only there, but in all 
Catholic countries throughout the Old World ; 
and to teach and to live the religion of Christ 
was to open the door to persecution, torture, 
and death, alike from pagan and Catholic. 

The history of all Catholic countries has been 
a history written in blood. Looking into the 
catacombs of Spain, but lately opened to the 
gaze of the outside world, we see but a slaugh- 
ter which has had its counterpart in many, 
many places of like faith and practice ! Oh, 
what suffering has been endured for the cause 
of Christ! How comparatively easy is the path 
of the devoted follower of the meek and lowly 
Jesus in this nineteenth century, to that of all 
previous years ! The light long prayed for 
and long waited, has dawned at last; and 
almost everywhere throughout the habitable 
globe, man can worship the true God accord- 



14 THE CENTENARIAN 

ing to the dictates of his own conscience. Glad 
millennium ! how should every Christian heart 
rejoice over the day-star of promise realized ! 
The right has triumphed in this nineteenth 
century, and ignorance and bigotry and super- 
stition have fallen to rise no more. The glo- 
rious light of the Bible has penetrated the thick 
darkness of other days, and the Sun of Right- 
eousness beams effulgently upon us despite 
centuries of opposition. God rules, and the 
powers of darkness must succumb. 



CHAPTER III. 

EARLY BOUNDARIES. 

Honest heart and iron will 
Danger cannot thwart or thrill ; 
Clouds may settle thick as night, 
Dare and do will bring the light. 

NOW let us turn to Pennsylvania at the 
time Mr. La Bar was born, and a few 
years previous to that time. The three original 
counties of Chester, Bucks, and Philadelphia, 
formed by William Penn in 1682, had been in- 
creased by only four more, Lancaster, York, 
Northampton, and Berks. Northampton was 
formed from Bucks in 1752, and is, therefore, 
but eleven years older than La Bar. At this 



OF MONROE COUNTY. 15 

time the western boundary of the Colony, or 
counties, was Httle more than a myth, and full 
of dissatisfaction and trouble to the white set- 
tlers, as well as to the Indians. The Great 
Indian Walk, which took place just twenty-six 
years before 1 763, was the first great source of 
contention and bloodshed to the settlers of the 
Forks region. Previous to that Walk the set- 
tlers of Penn's Colony had dwelt together in 
peace with the Indians. The kindness of Penn 
created a corresponding spirit in them, which 
lasted through many years ; but after the father 
of the Colony was gone, the white man's treach- 
ery revealed itself, stirred up the savage nature 
of the red man, and many an innocent mother 
and child paid the penalty with their lives. 

The original Forks was all the known re- 
gion of country reaching from the mouth of 
the Lehigh, bounded on the east by the Dela- 
ware River, and north and west by the Kitta- 
tinny Mountain, and extending beyond this 
mountain into the unknown west as far as any 
settler might dare to go. Easton, though laid 
out for a town as early as 1737, was but little 
settled upon until after 1752, when Northamp- 
ton, or the Forks, had been constituted a 
county. From that time up to 1761 it was a 
favorite place for holding Indian councils with 
their chiefs and head warriors, and it was not 
uncommon to see from two hundred to five 



l6 THE CENTENARIAN 

hundred Indians present on such occasions 
with the white officials of the province and of 
other colonies. 

William Parsons, an officer of the province, 
was sent to East Town, or Easton, in the fall 
of 1753. He gives us a lengthy letter, under 
that date, of the prospect of a town at that place. 
He fears a rival in Bethlehem, and also across 
the river, where Phillipsburg now stands. He 
fears, too, that the one hundred acres of land, 
which lie surrounded by hills, will not afford 
room enough for much of a town ; but he eulo- 
gizes the water-power, and the navigation of 
the Delaware and the Lehigh '* for small craft, 
for several miles." He says there is no clay 
for brick, which might be a drawback also. At 
this time there were eleven families in Easton, 
all of whom proposed to stay there through the 
winter. 

In 1758 there was not a wagon in Easton 
township, and only four draught and five pack 
horses. In Mount Bethel township there were 
nine wagons, twenty-four draught and eleven 
pack horses. 

Position of Troops in Northampton County, 1758. 

Captain Van Etten, at Minisink (Bush Kill), a 

lieutenant, and ....... 30 men. 

Captain Craig, at Fort Hamilton (Stroudsburg) . 41 " 

Lieutenant Wetherhold, at Brodhead's . . 26 " 

Ensign Sterling, at Wind Gap, Ted's House . 1 1 " 



OF MONROE COUNTY. 1 7 

Captain Orndt, at Fort Norris (between Wind 

Gap and Bossard's) . . . . . • 5^ men. 
Captain Wayne, at Fort Allen . . . . 50 " 
A sergeant at Uplinger's, and . . . • 5 " 
An ensign of Wetherhold's, at Donker's Mills . 15 " 
A lieutenant in Allen township, and . . . 15 " 
Captain Foulk, at the new fort, not named, be- 
tween Fort Allen and Fort Lebanon . . 63 " 
Captain Trexler (has posted himself, contrary to 

orders, within the mountains) . . . • 53 " 

Captain Martin (in the settlement above Easton) . 30 " 

389 " 

A squad of men was usually kept at Philip 
Bossard's, about six miles from Fort Hamilton. 
It was not far from Bossard's that Peter Hess, 
Nicholas Coleman, and one Gottlieb w^ere killed 
in 1756 by a party of Indians under Teedyus- 
cung. Henry Hess, a son of Peter, was car- 
ried off by them, and returned, after an absence 
of several months. 

In 1757, Philip Bossard w-as driven away from 
his plantation, with all his neighbors, and took 
refuge below the mountain. They petitioned 
the Governor for troops, and they were sent. 

On the 2 1 St of June, 1757, Captain Van 
Etten sent a guard of a corporal and ten men 
to escort Samuel Depui's wife, who was sick, 
to a doctor at Bethlehem. 

The chief Teedyuscung was prominent at this 
time, and he took active part in the councils. 
He exhibited a native eloquence in his speeches, 



iS THE CENTENARIAN 

which told upon his hearers, without education 
or the rules of oratory. He professed to be the 
leader of the Lenapes, and contended for their 
rights, against other tribes, and against the in- 
trusion of the whites. He had been baptized 
into the Moravian faith, at Bethlehem; but 
whether his conversion was genuine, many 
have serious doubts to-day. But, if he was 
sincere in his belief that his people had wrongs 
which should be redressed, he certainly had the 
right to contend for justice, even though it led 
through blood. He seems to have lived for 
some time somewhere near where Stroudsburg 
now stands. 

In 1763 the Indians made the last desperate 
attempt to drive the white settlers from the 
valley below the Blue Ridge, and from Water 
Gap to Bethlehem many families were butch- 
ered by the savages pouring over the moun- 
tains from the north. Many of the whites 
escaped across the Delaware, as they had fre- 
quently done before. Teedyuscung was the 
leader of the terrible raid. He, at last, came 
to a violent death bv the hands of men of his 
own race at Wilkesbarre. 

At the very time of this fearful sweep of car- 
nage and death, George was born ; but, in their 
hurry to reach the more populous settlements 
further toward the Lehigh, the Indians left his 
father's hut unmolested, and there the family 



OF MONROE COUNTY. I9 

remained through all that terrible crisis, which 
below them swept death and destruction to so 
many. With such alarming scenes passing 
before them, the parents of George might well 
question the wisdom of their fathers, who had 
left a land of boasted civilization to bear, with 
their descendants, the terrors of a frontier life 
among a race of men who could join in a mad 
carnival and war-dance, with the bloody scalps 
of their white victims dangling from their gir- 
dles ! But they were free from the thraldom 
of European bigotry, and freemen in the sight 
of God. It did not require much argument and 
reasoning to satisfy themselves that it was 
better to suffer all these perils and dangers 
here, in a home of privation, and surrounded 
by wild natives, than to be slaves, though in 
the midst of luxury, but persecuted and fettered. 

The grandfather La Bar — or Le Barre, as 
the name was brought over the Atlantic, and 
La war, as the Germans had it — came to this 
wild, new country, expecting there would be 
hardship, trial, and danger. But he knew all 
this would not fetter his conscience, and it was 
this liberty, above every other, that he sought. 
For this he was willing to brave every other 
difficulty. Of two evils he chose the least. 

Two brothers came with him, and they landed 
at Philadelphia. It took many weeks to cross 
the ocean then, and who shall guess the tor- 



20 THE CENTENARIAN 

nado of swelling thoughts that swept through 
those brothers' breasts as, day after day, the dis- 
tance grew greater and greater between them 
and all the dear ones left behind? And then 
the unknown future, to be spent in a far-off 
country, and in an unknown spot! Ah, all this 
needed nerve and courage. 

That trying scene of long ago, 
No pen or pencil now can show ; 
'Tis through a glass we darkly see 
What men will suffer to be free ! 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE ARRIVAL. 

"Tne New World" — 'twas the proper name — 

They saw a wondrous change ; 
Nothing like that from which they came — 

All, save the sky, was strange ! 

THE grandfather's name was Peter; the 
brothers', Charles and Abraham. They 
were young men, stout and large, full of dar- 
ing, and bound on a bold enterprise, to do or 
die. After spending a few days at the Phila- 
delphia settlement, learning what could be 
learned of the new country and its wild men, 
they determined to follow up, up the Delaware 
River, until they had passed the very frontier 



OF MONROE COUNTY. 21 

of all white settlements, to plant themselves 
among the aborigines of the land. In three 
days they arrived at the Forks, or immediately 
below, which was then the principal settlement. 
Here they also stopped for a day or two. Just 
in the Forks, between the Delaware and Lehigh 
rivers, and where Easton now stands, was quite 
an Indian village. It was an odd village of 
odd citizens to the Frenchmen. 

Continuing their journey through the wil- 
derness, following Indian paths as best they 
could, and always keeping in sight of the river, 
at length they came in view of the Blue Ridge 
barrier. There were some small settlements 
back from the river, one near Martin's Creek, 
one at Richmond, and at Williamsburg. But 
these they passed round by following the river. 
At this time there was no settlement above 
Williamsburg, along the river, until Nicholas 
Depui's, who was comfortably planted at what 
is now Shawnee. The brothers supposed they 
had passed beyond the very outskirts of civil- 
ization, and, after viewing the country between 
the river and the mountain for a day or two, 
they pitched upon a site for their cabin, about 
three-quarters of a mile from the river, on a 
somewhat elevated spot. The cabin was soon 
erected. The natives were their only near 
neighbors,, and these they managed to make 
their true friends by many little acts of kind- 



22 THE CENTENARIAN 

ness. This friendship was of untold benefit to 
the La Bar family in after days, when deception 
and intrigue had roused the ire of the savages 
to deeds of blood and death. Perhaps it is 
hardly proper to call the Indians of Penn's 
Colony "savages," for they were not really such 
until after the noted Walk, by which means 
they were deceived and cheated. But after 
1737 they looked upon most of the whites as 
enemies and intruders, and their tomahawks 
were now used for a new purpose. Luckily for 
the La Bars, they had ingratiated themselves 
into the good graces of the Indians before the 
great enmity was stirred up between the races. 
The brothers mixed freely with the Indians, 
without fear, and a mutual interest and welfare 
existed between them. Their cabin-home and 
its surroundings were in wide contrast with 
their home in the country of their birth, and 
which they had now turned their backs forever 
upon ; and many and trying were the difficul- 
ties under which they were placed ; but they 
were free to worship their God unmolested. 
Their rude cabin, made of small logs and 
mud, and covered with bark and split timber, 
lapped together, was a home more to be de- 
sired by them than the more convenient home 
of their fatherland. There they were cramped 
and dwarfed in spirit, and looked upon them- 
selves as less than serfs. 



OF MONROE COUNTY. 23 

The wild man's fare was not more wild than 
their own ; for their subsistence had to be 
drawn from the woods and river, until a patch 
could be cleared to grow their corn and beans. 
Oh, what will not man bear to be free ? Im- 
mortal man, fettered and bound by man ! He 
may be for a season ; and thousands may pay 
the purchase-price with their lives for soul-lib- 
erty, but it must come, it has come ! 

It was a romantic picture — these three 
French brothers, Crusoe-like, cut off from civ- 
ilization, living in a hunters hut, and deter- 
mined to make the wilderness their home. 
While one might be toasting the venison, and 
preparing the breakfast meal, another might be 
seen mending his leather breeches, and the other 
dressing up the flint of his gun, preparatory to 
the excursion for the day. A few camping ar- 
ticles had been brought with them ; but none 
of these were more important than the mortar 
and pestle for pounding their corn, which they 
obtained of their red neighbors. They could 
not, at once, live on game alone ; and the corn 
they got of the Indians was their only bread, 
which, to their appetites, sharpened by much 
exercise and exposure, was most palatable. 

The first three months of their cabin-life 
were spent in explorations throughout the sur- 
rounding region ; and they were not long in 
finding the Depui settlement, above them; and, 



24 THE CENTENARIAN 

though they were disappointed to find them- 
selves not the farthest in the wilderness, yet 
they were glad to find a store of supplies so 
near. 

The Indians inhabiting the Minisink region 
— which was the river valley between Delaware 
Water Gap and Carpenter's Point — were the 
Wolf, or Minsi, called by the English Monseys. 
They were a warlike tribe, strong friends while 
they were friends, but bloodthirsty when ene- 
mies. The name Delaware was given by the 
whites to all the tribes in the vicinity of the 
river, but they called themselves the Lenni 
Lenapes, or original people. They had long 
been warring with the Six Nations, and pro- 
fessed to have been victorious. 

One of the first purchases by William Penn 
of land from the Indians was measured by walk- 
ing, in which Penn took a walking part him- 
self. He walked as they walked, slowly, stop- 
ping frequently to smoke and talk and to be 
refreshed. They were satisfied. The first line 
reached up the river to Trenton. When more 
land was wanted, Penn s agents flattered the 
Indians to consent to a day and a half's walk 
from the first tract. The deed was written and 
signed, with plenty of blank space to be filled 
up to suit an avaricious taste. Expert walkers 
were advertised for. An air-line path was cut 
out ; and it is said a trial walk was experimented 



OF MONROE COUNTY. 25 

upon, in order to make a good thing of it; and 
all unknown to the Indians. 

The Walk came off in the fall of 1737 ; and 
there was no stopping to smoke, to rest, or to 
be refreshed. It was walk, walk, walk, from 
sun to sun. The Pennites had found the 
very man for their purpose, Edw^ard Marshall. 
Yeates and one Indian kept up with Marshall 
through the first day, and they reached the 
north side of the Blue Ridge, through the 
Wind Gap, at sunset. There was half a day 
to w^alk yet, and the Lehigh hills — the farthest 
point that the Indians had supposed the w^alk 
to extend — had been passed three hours be- 
fore. They began to murmur at the cheat, 
and, when Marshall started next morning, he 
had to go alone. The country north of the 
Forks was the Indians' favorite ground. They 
feared it would now be lost; the whites wanted 
to reach around the Minisink. 

At twelve o'clock, Marshall w^as at Pocono 
Point, now Tannersville. Taking advantage 
of the curve in the river, it was declared that 
the line strike the river at Lackawaxen. Thus 
the Minisink was swooped into the Penn Col- 
ony. From the point w^here Marshall ended 
his walk it took four days to reach the river. 
Had they aimed for the nearest point, they 
would have reached it at Water Gap in less 
than a day! But then it would not have taken 



26 THE CENTENARIAN 

in the coveted prize. The Indians were dis- 
appointed, chagrined, angry, and they were 
ready for retahation. While they were friends 
the whites had taught the Indians the use of 
the firearms they had put in their hands, and 
now they were teaching them the science of 
deception and intrigue. The Indians were 
thus fully equipped to resent the injury and 
remember the insult. 

The French language was very useful to 
the brothers in communicating their thoughts 
to one another, but with the Indians it was 
useless, and they set themselves to acquire 
this language. It would have been amusing 
could we have seen them trying, again and 
again, to draw out, by signs, the Indian names 
of gun, deer, fish, fire, water, etc., in order to 
make a start and catch the least hold of the 
language. But it is perseverance that con- 
quers, and, at the close of the first year, they 
had acquired a tolerably fair idea of the Lenape 
language, and could converse quite freely with 
their red friends. They did not know they 
would soon be under the necessity of learning 
yet another tongue. But overcoming one dif- 
ficulty enabled them the more easily to sur- 
mount the next, and nothing daunted their 
resolution. 



OF MONROE COUNTY. 27 



CHAPTER V. 

EARLY SETTLERS. 

And still they come, an earnest band, 
Believing this the Promised Land. 

OTHER settlers followed rapidly into Hun- 
ter's settlement, principally from Germany, 
spreading out from the main clearings, until, at 
lengfth, each of the brothers took German wives. 
It matters not if they popped the question at 
corn-huskings, at clearings, to the music of the 
sickle, or at the quilting ; for the women were 
always present on all these occasions. What- 
ever the "bee," it came to be that they became 
married men, and their French was useless, 
unless to have a three-cornered chat about the 
merits or demerits of their fraiis, when these 
rustic ladies were present. However hard it 
might be to unlearn the French, the German 
was now the lesson, for the women would have 
their own way even at that time. 

Now the cabin is too small, and there must 
be a spreading out. Peter takes his Dutch 
teacher and pushes a little farther on, and 
bought a tract of land above the mountains 
of the Indians. Years after, he had to buy it 
again. This tract was southwest of where 



28 THE centenarian' 

Stroudsburg now stands, and adjoining a tract 
Colonel Stroud purchased some time after. 
Stroud was the founder of Stroudsburg. The 
settlement of N. Depui, at Shawnee, was made 
very much earlier. In fact, it is thought by 
many historians that this was the very first 
white settlement in the State. Penn's Colony 
had been planted forty years before he knew 
of this settlement; and when, in 1737, he sent 
agents to look after the "squatter," Depui could 
give no positive date of the first clearing. He 
seemed to be on the right side of the Indians, 
but when Penn's surveyor undertook to run 
out the place, they advised him to " put up iron 
string," which he did. The Depui settlers had 
come across from Esopus, and thither they had 
a good communication by what was called 
the "Mine Road." They did not then know 
whither the river led. 

N. Depui — Depue or Depuy the name now 
is — raised Colonel Stroud. It was not un- 
common, at that early day, for immigrants to 
this country to sell themselves, or their ser- 
vices, for a term of years, for their passage- 
money; and this was done in the case of Stroud 
to N. Depui, and for whom he worked until his 
time was expired. 

Stroud was a colonel in the Revolution, and 
had command of Fort Penn, which was situated 
just west of the "great wash" of the past year. 



OF MONROE COUNTY. 29 

The old Indian fort was farther up, near the 
west end of the town, and was built around 
Peter La Bar's house. 

The Colonel had made a good selection for 
operation, and immediately after the Revolu- 
tion he became the greatest business-man north 
of the mountains, having a grist-mill, (the sec- 
ond in all this region, Depui's mill being oldest,) 
a store, tavern, and he had, sometimes, as many 
as twenty men felling trees and clearing up the 
land. There was a great deal: of card-playing 
at this time, as there always is just after the 
toils and relaxations of war, and, on one oc- 
casion, the Colonel's choppers thought they 
would suspend work and take a quiet game. 
So they stationed two men up a tree, to watch 
for the "boss," and to give timely notice if he 
should be seen coming toward them. The sen- 
tinels became careless ; the Colonel came up 
behind them, suspected the game, and ordered 
them down from the tree. They obeyed, and 
when they had reached the ground, he began 
to play cane upon their heads, at the same time 
telling them to "watch better next time." 

In the early Indian wars there was a line of 
forts, or block-houses, in front, reaching from 
Weisportto N. Depui's, and the Governor sent 
Benjamin Franklin to pay off the soldiers sta- 
tioned at the different forts, and to report as to 
the prospect of the country. He took observa- 



30 THE CENTENARIAN 

tions, which were published. He stopped with 
N. Depui, and while there, a young Brodhead, 
son of Daniel, was "sparking" the old man's 
daughter, and, as he was a frontier man, he 
thought the Colony owed him services, as well 
as the more idle soldiers, Franklin denied the 
claim, saying it was unnecessary for a man to 
stand guard over a woman who lived in a fort. 
The Brodhead clearing was, at this time, about 
one mile east of where Stroudsburg Depot now 
stands, and on the old Smith place. 

Speaking of the Depui place, it is a remark- 
able fact, for this country, that the old, old 
homestead is still in the hands of a descendant 
of the same name. 

Peter La Bar, the Frenchman, cleared up a 
good home, after many years of hard labor, and 
raised a large family of children. He had seen 
many trying times, and was often called upon 
to assist those who came for refuge to his fam- 
ily in Fort Hamilton. He always stuck to the 
homestead he had hewn out from the rough ; 
but the religion he had sacrificed so much for 
at an earlier day, was sadly neglected. The 
occasion to battle for religious liberty having 
passed away, the value of the privilege seems 
to have been forgotten. How is it some men 
seem to live too long for their own good ? 
When men outlive their piety they live too long. 

Whisky brought the fall. Stroudsburg had 



OF MONROE COUNTY. 3I 

its whisky-shop then, and Peter patronized 
that shop too well for his own good and the 
good of his family. His substance became 
scattered, his family broken up, and the end 
came. George remembers his old French grand- 
father distinctly. His intemperance brought on 
something like the palsy, and lying, half help- 
less, for some months, with a rope dangling from 
the beams above his head to help him to turn in 
his bed, he died when George was present. This 
lesson against intemperance he never forgot. 

One of the French brothers, Charles, remained 
on the old cabin homestead in Mount Bethel, 
and the other, Abraham, planted himself above 
the Water Gap Notch, not far from the Water 
Gap Depot. Here he lived many years, also 
raising a large family. He cleared the islands 
just above the Gap, which, with the garden-flat 
around his house, made quite a snug farm. His 
islands are little more now than gravelly bars, 
the la (lay) part, which made the name, being 
lain somewhere farther down the Delaware. 

Abraham La Bar first opened and walled up 
that noble old spring near the house of Samuel ^ 
Williams in Dutotsburg, and which still flows to 
bless the human family, as well as other families. 

Abraham La Bar, as well as some of his sons, 
had to carry his musket in one hand while go- 
ing to the spring after water with a pail in the 
other. The path was through a perfect thicket 



32 THE CENTENARIAN 

of laurel, hazel, and alder, that led to the spring, 
and there was no telling at what step an Indian 
might be met. 

Abraham La Bar lived here in 1 741, when the 
Governor sent Nicholas Scull up to look after 
the state of things in the Smithfields. The prin- 
cipal settlers in this vicinity, then, were N. Depui, 
Abraham Van Campen, Jacobus Kirkendall, 
Daniel Brodhead, and Jacob Kirkendall, and 
they had petitioned the Governor to send them 
help, as the Indians were retaliating on them 
for the wrong of the Indian Walk. It was in 
answer to this call that Scull was sent. He 
gave the Indians to understand that if they did 
not submit to the state of things, the Governor 
would call for their enemies, the Six Nations, 
to help him, and they would exterminate the 
Minisink Indians. They were alarmed, and 
promised to do better. 

As late as 1763, we find the following petition 
laid before the Colonial Government by the 
inhabitants of Lower Smithfield: 

"Lower Smithfield, Northampton County, 
1st September, 1763. 
"To the Honorable James Hamilton, Esq., Lieutenant-Gov- 
ernor and Commander-in-Chief of the Province of 
Pennsylvania: 

"We, the within subscribers, inhabitants residing upon the 
frontiers of the Province of Pennsylvania, in the County of 
Northampton, do, from divers reasons, reports, and informa- 



OF MONROE COUNTY. 



33 



tion, and from different accounts we have from the Ohio that 
the savages are committing their cruel barbarities, we have 
the greatest reason in life to expect those savage Indians 
will extend their cruel barbarities as far as our places. As 
we are in no order of defence, but lie entirely open to the 
mercy of those barbarous savage Indians, who delight in the 
shedding ofinnocent blood, and for the defence of any attempts 
which might be made of the like, a number of us have formed 
and enjoined ourselves under articles in an associated, inde- 
pendent company, as loyal subjects to our king and country, 
ready and willing to defend whatever attempts those bar- 
barians might make upon our settlements ; for which we 
have, thirty of us, unanimously chosen Mr. John Vancampen 
as captain, Mr. Joseph Wheeler lieutenant, and Cornelius 
Vancampen ensign. And your humble petitioners pray 
your Honor will be pleased to grant us your assistance in 
carrying out so loyal a design. And your petitioners will 
ever pray. 

" Benjamin Shoemaker, 
Elijah Shoemaker, 



William Smith, 
Nicholas Depui, 
James Higerman, 
Benj. Shoemaker, Jr., 
Moses Shoemaker, 
William Clark, 
Leonard Weser, 
Charles Holmes, 
John Camden, 
William Devore, 
Benjamin Hains, 
John Fish, 
Samuel Hyndy. 



Michael Sly, 
Benjamin Foster, 
Benjamin Vancampen, 
Jonathan Hunlock, 
John Countryman, 
Henry Pensil, 
Charles Delov, 
John Chambers, 
Benjamin Oney, 
Peter Hains, 
Isaac Vanormen, 
William Carrel, 
Joseph Hains, 
James Errel, 
Garret Shoemaker." 



For the benefit of those whose tongue has 
never been muzzled by a king, we quote the 

3 



34 THE CENTENARIAN 

following. The Marshall mentioned was son 
of the Indian walker, who seems to have thought 
there was unfair dealing in it 

" E ASTON, July 2yih, 1757. 
"We do certify that we heard WMliam Marshall say the 
following words, or words to the same effect, viz, : That the 
Proprietors had wronged the Indians out of their lands; and 
that he would prove it; and that, in that respect, he abided 
by the Indians. 

"Daniel Brodhead, 
Edward Biddle." 

It was the original French brothers who first 
cut the road through the mountain gap which 
was afterward named Tat s Gap. It was a hard 
road, but it led in almost a direct line from 
the early cabin to Peter's place. The valley 
just north of the mountain was then named 
"Deer Park," but has since been known as 
Wolf Hollow and Poplar Valley. It looks, even 
yet, as though it might have been wolfish before 
it was settled as now. From the western ridge 
of this valley opens a grand view, of many miles' 
extent, reaching to the Pocono Mountains, and 
taking in Pocono Point, where Marshall ended 
his great walk. 



OF MONROE COUNTY. 35 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE ESTRANGEMENT. 

No matter where or what it be, 
'Tis home where opens infancy. 

IN such a pioneer home, surrounded by the 
stern reahties of wilderness Hfe, and a race 
of men more wild than nature itself, was the 
father of George reared to a life of fearless hardi- 
hood. At first, cut off almost entirely from the 
known world, inhabitants of the New, a kingdom 
of the patriarchal, like the early Jews, though 
much less numerous, they lived, struggled, 
reared families, spread out cultivated fields, 
made some little progress in civilization and 
in the art of living, grew old, and died. 

George's father married, and moved to the 
south side of the mountain, and not far from 
the original cabin. He was a bold, impetuous, 
wicked man, though his wife was a religious 
woman. He cared little for that religion which 
had led his father and his uncles to brave so 
much before he was born. But he had seen his 
father show very little respect for the same, if 
he had not entirely lost all ; and who shall not 
say that the father's unfaithfulness was much 
of th€ cause of the son's wickedness ? 



36 T H E C E N T E N A R I A N 

His name was George, also, and his rashness 
set the Indians against him. He was not in the 
least afraid of them, and any trick he could play 
upon them he enjoyed hugely, even though it 
might cost a poor Indian his life. He consid- 
ered himself too smart to be beaten by a red- 
skin, and to carry out his theory to perfection 
required no little tact and watchfulness on his 
own part. If a strange Indian should ask him 
for information on any subject, he would make 
it a point to give him just as near the opposite 
of the truth as he could possibly. 

He would put himself at considerable incon- 
venience, and consider himself well paid, if he 
could only make an Indian miserable, and see 
him writhe beneath some fancied trouble. He 
would tease and tantalize the poor red-skins at 
every possible opportunity, and the good-will 
shown the father and his brothers was turned to 
hatred upon the son. One night he was caught 
out of his log-hut, when some half-a-dozen In- 
dians took after him. Had it been daylight, he 
would have stood his ground with that number, 
'but, in the darkness, he thought it prudent to look 
to his legs for safety. He had just time to gain 
his door ahead of his pursuers, where his sturdy 
wife stood ready to help him close and fasten 
it against them. He had frequently made the 
Indians run; and now, when they found the 
tables turned upon him, they set up a hideous 



OF MONROE COUNTY. 37 

yell, as they bounded against the door. They 
seemed to have no guns, and, after spending 
their fury in terrible shrieks and thumps, as they 
prowled round the door for an hour, they with- 
drew, to the great relief of the inmates of the 
cabin. It was a fearful hour to him, who had 
really never known what it was before to fear. 
He did not know at what moment a fire might 
be kindled outside his cabin, and then he knew 
there must be close quarters. He was on the 
point of trying his trusty musket upon the in- 
truders, but his wife prevailed upon him to 
desist, as that would surely bring death to 
themselves. 

John Penn, grandson of William Penn, had, 
very foolishly, offered a bounty for the capture 
or scalps of Indians, he being Lieutenant-Gov- 
ernor of the Colony in 1764. He was another 
degenerated descendant, and he did not belong 
to the respected Society of his grandfather. 

The bounty was : " For every male above the 
age of ten years captured, $150; scalped, being 
killed, $134; for every female Indian enemy, 
and every male under the age of ten years cap- 
tured, $130; for every female above the age 
of ten years scalped, being killed, $50." (!) 

George La Bar, senior, liked the law, for he 
hated the Indians. At that time squads of men 
might often be seen, with George as their cap- 
tain, looking for " game " which promised such 



38 THE CENTENARIAN 

reward in dollars and cents. What made this 
law the more heinous, was the fact that the 
Indians were about broken down in this part 
of the Colony, and a peace was concluded the 
very same year. 

George's hostility toward the Indians was 
intensified by the fact that he came very near 
being shot by them a few years before. A scout 
of some thirty men went out from Hunter's 
settlement to rout out the Indians from Water 
Gap to Lehigh, near the Moravian settlement. 
They only found a few straggling red-skins, 
until, when near the Lehigh, they were suddenly 
surprised and scattered by five times their own 
force. Henry Hauser was shot down, close by 
the side of George. Hauser begged not to be 
left to be scalped by the Indians ; but, as his 
ammunition was gone, La Bar knew that to 
tarry with his dying comrade would only be to 
court certain death, and he fled for his life. The 
surprise had been so sudden that the party 
scattered to save themselves in every direction. 
George fled toward the mountain, and as it was 
winter, and very icy, he threw off his shoes, 
and, on his stocking feet, soon outstripped his 
pursuers. Halting against the mountain-side 
to take breath, he looked down in the valley, 
and saw the Indians scalp his comrade, and then 
have a war-dance around the dead victim ! He 
travelled eight miles without shoes, over the 



OF MONROE COUNTY. 39. 

ice and snow, before he reached the settle- 
ment. 

A party returned for the body of Hauser next 
day, and found it stripped naked, scalped, and 
left. Hauser was from Lower Smithfield, near 
Water Gap, and brother of Ulrich Hauser, an 
old settler of that place. 

This circumstance aroused the ire of Ulrich, 
and he raised a company of thirty or forty men 
in Smithfield, and they w^ent frequently in 
search of the "reds" north of the mountain. 

Wherever they saw a smoke curling up 
through the trees they aimed for it; and many 
red scalps avenged the death of Henry. 

Tom Casper, a great Indian-slayer, was with 
the expedition in which Hauser was killed, as 
also a little Dutchman who lived in Hunter's 
settlement. He used to boast that he had killed 
fourteen without getting a scratch. 




^^^ 



40 THE CENTENARIAN 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE SMITHFIELDS. 

To fly a kite, or talk to kings ; 
To fill a "stick," or say wise things; 
To plan a fort, tell how to fight; 
To show that Liberty is Right, 
He was the man. 

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN'S official life, 
previous to the Revolution, was spent in 
looking after the interests of the Colony abroad ; 
but in 1756, the Indians had become so blood- 
thirsty, through the inhuman zeal of the whites, 
that he was sent to the front, to exercise his 
master-mind upon the situation. 

Among his first orders, issued from Bethle- 
hem, was the following: 

"To Captain John Van Etten, of Upper Smithfield town- 
ship, Northampton County: 

"Sir — I. You are to proceed immediately to raise a com- 
pany of foot, consisting of thirty able men, including two 
sergeants, with which you are to protect the inhabitants of 
Upper Smithfield, assisting them while threshing out and 
securing their corn, and scouting from time to time as you 
judge necessary, on the outside of the settlement, with such 
of the inhabitants as may join you, to discover the enemy's 
approaches, and repel their attacks. 

" 2. For the better security of the inhabitants of that dis- 
trict, you are to post your men as follows: Eight at your 



OF MONROE COUNTY. 41 

own house, eightat Lieutenant Hyndshaw's,six with sergeant 
atTishhock, and six with another sergeant at or near Henry 
Courtright's ; and you are to settle signals, or means of sudden 
alarming the inhabitants, and conveying your whole strength 
with the militia of your district, on any necessary occasion, 

"3. Every man is to be engaged for one month; and, as 
the Province cannot at present furnish arms or blankets to 
your company, you are to allow every man enlisting and 
bringing his own arms and blanket, a dollar for the use 
thereof, over and above his pay. 

"4. You are to furnish your men with provisions, not ex- 
ceeding the allowance mentioned in the paper herewith given 
to you, and your reasonable accounts for the same shall be 
allowed and paid. 

" 5. You are to keep a diary or journal of every day's trans- 
actions, and an exact account of the time when each man 
enters himself with you; and if any man desert or die, you 
are to note the time in your journal, and the time of engaging 
a new man in his place, and submit your journal to the 
inspection of the Governor when required. 

"6. You are to acquaint the men that if in their ranging 
they meet with, or are at any time attacked by the enemy, 
and kill any of them, forty dollars will be allowed and paid 
by the Government for each scalp of an Indian enemy so 
killed, the same being produced, properly attested. 

"7. You are to take care that your stores and provisions 
be not wasted. 

"8. If, by any means, you gain intelligence of the designs 
of the enemy, or the march of any of their parties toward 
any part of the frontier, you are to send advice thereof to 
the Governor, and to the other companies in the neighbor- 
hood, as the occasion may require. 

"9. You are to keep good order among your men, and pre- 
vent drunkenness and other immoralities as much as may 
be, and not suffer them to do any injury to the inhabitants 
whom they come to protect. 

" 10. You are to take care that the men keep their arms 



42 THE CENTENARIAN 

clean and in good order, and that their powder always be 
kept dry and fit for use. 

" II. You are to make up your muster rolls at the end of 
the month, in order to receive pay of your company, and to 
make oath to the truth thereof before a justice of the peace, 
and then transmit the same to the Governor. 

"B. Franklin. 

'' jfanuary I2th, 1756." 

In writing to Governor Morgan, from Beth- 
lehem, a day or two after, Franklin says : ** I have 
threatened to disband or remove the companies 
already posted for the security of particular 
townships, if the people would not stay on their 
places, behave like men, do something for them- 
selves, and assist the Province soldiers." He 
says he found the whole settlements around 
and north of Bethlehem on the very point of 
giving up the whole region to the Indians. But 
he soon established a line of soldiery from the 
Lehigh to Bushkill, and brought order out of 
chaos. 

Upper Smithfield and Lower Smithfield were 
township names one hundred and fifty years 
ago; but the territory claimed originally by 
each has changed considerably. Pike County 
was cut off of Upper Smithfield, and a large part 
of Monroe County was formed from Lower 
Smithfield. It was the Esopus settlers who 
gave the names. 

Immediately after Franklin's visit to the front, 
Governor Morgan visited it also ; and he, at 



OF MONROE COUNTY. 43 

Franklin's suggestion, established a line of 
forts, or block-houses, reaching from the Sus- 
quehanna, at Shamokin, to Fort Hamilton, 
(Stroudsburg,) and up the Delaware to Wal- 
pack Bend or Bushkill. A line also followed 
the Blue Ridge, and reached to the Lehigh. 
The forts were anything but what we would 
now call forts, being merely stakes driven into 
the ground and then banked up with earth, with 
a sort of log-hut in each corner, in the inside, 
for barracks, and to accommodate the settlers' 
families, as, from time to time, they were driven 
in for safety. The one generally supposed to 
have been near the mouth of the Bushkill was 
called Fort Hyndshaw, after the Lieutenant 
appointed by Franklin. The argument in favor 
of locating this fort near the mouth of the Bush- 
kill is taken from a report which mentions its 
being near a large creek ; but I think the re- 
porter meant near a large creek which comes 
into the river on the opposite side. I base my 
conclusions on the fact that the road from Fort 
Hamilton to Fort Hyndshaw led past Depui's, 
which was along the river, and that we are told 
it was an " open road from Depui's to Fort 
Hyndshaw." Now, by following up the river 
flats, it would not be an open road to Bushkill, 
for there is, even now, an impassable barrier on 
this side of the river. The fort was on the flats, 
opposite Flat Brook. 



44 THE CENTENARIAN 

Depui's house was stone, and that was stock- 
aded, and a swivel gun was mounted at each 
corner. This was sometimes called Depui's 
fort, and was, in reality, more of a fort than any 
of the others. 

Depui was never in fear of the surrounding 
Indians; at least, not until after 1737, for he 
had lived among them in perfect security, as 
had his father before him. But when the French 
began to exert their wicked influence upon them, 
reaching down from Canada, then Depui be- 
came alarmed, and he and his neighbors begged 
earnestly for colonial help. Such calls were 
always respected, and help came. When Depui 
asked for soldiers, he always informed the Gov- 
ernor that he had plenty of provision to sup- 
port them. 

In all the public life of the original Depuis, 
reported by various officials of the Colony who 
called upon them, I find only one charge, and 
that is by James Young, "Commissary-General 
of ye Musters." 

On a tour of inspection in 1756, he reached 
Depui's, June 24th, and says: 

** At 7 p. M. came to Samuel Depui's. Mus- 
tered that part of Captain Wetherhold's com- 
pany that are stationed here, a lieutenant and 
twenty-six men, all regularly enlisted for six 
months, as are the rest of his company. Round 
Depui's house is a large but slight stockade, 



OF MONROE COUNTY. 45 

with a swivel gun mounted on each corner. 
Mr. Depui was not at home, his son, with a son 
of Mr. Brodhead, keeping house. They ex- 
pressed themselves as if they thought the Prov- 
ince was obliged to them for allowing this party 
to be in their house; also made use of very ar- 
rogant expressions of the commissioners, and 
the people of Philadelphia in general. They 
make a mere merchandise of the people sta- 
tioned here. 

" Provincial stores : thirteen good muskets, 
three cartridge-boxes, thirteen pounds powder, 
twenty-two pounds lead." 

The most of the men furnished their own 
arms and blankets, and thus received seven 
instead of six dollars per month. 

The first Depui we have any account of was 
Nicholas, who was an old man in 1737; and 
in 1 756, we read of Nicholas, Aaron, and Samuel 
as prominent. These were, perhaps, the sons 
of the first Nicholas. In the Revolution, the 
most prominent was still Nicholas, who was then 
esquire, and who may have been a son or grand- 
son of the first. It was always a prominent 
family, and well to do. They had a grist-mill 
as early as 1755, and we know a stone church 
was built at Shawnee in 1752, w^hich was torn 
down but a few years ago, and replaced by 
brick. The old corner-stone still graces the 



46 THE CENTENARIAN 

new church. It was built originally as Dutch 
and Presbyterian. 

Daniel Brodhead's place was the only clear- 
ing between Depui's and Fort Hamilton, and 
here soldiers were stationed in 1755. Stroud 
took hold of the land between Brodhead's and 
La Bar's. In 1757, Captain Van Etten had 
charge of the forts Hyndshaw and Hamilton, 
with men at Depui's. April 25th, he sent Ser- 
geant Leonard Denn to Depui's for subsistence, 
with two men. Having reached about two 
miles from Depui's, they were fired upon by a 
party of Indians, and the sergeant was killed. 
The two men returned to the fort, gave the 
alarm, the body was found, naked and scalped, 
and carried to Depui's and buried. 

Two or three days previous to this, a young 
man by name of Countryman was killed and 
scalped within three hundred yards of Fort 
Hamilton. 

On the 23d of June, five men were attacked 
near Brodhead's house, and one John Tidd was 
killed. A squad was sent out of the fort, and 
when near Brodhead's, upwards of thirty In- 
dians were discovered, who, seeing the soldiers, 
endeavored to get between them and the weak- 
ened fort. The captain dropped one Indian, 
and then they made off. On the same day, a 
scout of thirteen men arrived at the fort, search- 
ing for the wife of Edward Marshall, who had 



OF MONROE COUNTY. 47 

been shot some time before. The firing had 
attracted them to the spot. The next day the 
Jersey party accompanied the captain to the 
scene of the fight, and found the body of the 
dead man, and also the dead carcasses of fifteen 
cattle, horses, and hogs. The Indians had 
driven away two beeves, with other plunder 
carried off. 

The house of Peter La Bar was within Fort 
Hamilton, and his was the only clearing near 
the fort for a long time. Wherever there was 
a clearing at this time, soldiers were detailed to 
keep guard while the men got in their harvest. 
From 1752 to 1759 the war front was from 
Bethlehem to Depui's and Fort Hyndshaw, 
and the settlers along this front had a rough 
time of it. Many gave up in despair, and left 
their improvements; their log -houses were 
burnt, and their harvests left unreaped. Dur- 
ing this time, petition after petition, numerously 
signed, was sent in to the Colonial Government 
for help. Those below the mountain asked, 
again and again, that the Blue Ridge should 
be the line of defence, and that all beyond 
should be left to the Indians. Such petition 
was never granted. In 1758, James Burd made 
an examination of the outposts in Northamp- 
ton County, going up as far as Fort Hyndshaw. 
He said that south of the mountain was a fine 
country, but that north of the mountain it was 



48 THE CENTENARIAN 

an entire barren wilderness, not capable of 
improvement. What would he think of it 
now? 

Of Depui's, he says, "This is a fine planta- 
tion, situate upon the river Delaware, one hun- 
dred miles from Philadelphia, and thirty-five 
from Easton. They go in boats from here to 
Philadelphia, which carry about twenty-two 
tons. There is a pretty good stockade here, with 
four swivels mounted, and good accommoda- 
tions for soldiers." 

He further says: "Reviewed this garrison, 
and found twenty-two good men, fifty pounds 
powder, one hundred and twenty-five pounds 
lead, no flints, a great quantity of beef, I sup- 
pose eight months' provisions for a company, 
but no flour. Plenty of flour at the mill, about 
three hundred yards from the fort. The country 
apply for a company to be stationed here. Ex- 
tremely cold." This was March 3d. There 
was no opening through the Water Gap, and 
Wind Gap was the communicating road with 
the south side of the mountain. 

The Indians stood out stoutly and long to 
hold their hunting-ground along the Delaware 
above the Water Gap. But they were forced, 
at length, to give up all hope, and the place 
that knew them knows them no more. They 
gave up the contest in 1764. 

About a mile above the Water Gap, on a 



OF MONROE COUNTY. 49 

high bank of the river, is an old Indian burial- 
ground. It is overgrown with large trees, but 
some of the mounds are still visible. The 
Delaware Water Gap was a favorite home of 
the Indians, and the stone relics of the race 
have been picked up in great numbers through- 
out this vicinity. Their bark canoes here 
floated on the lake-like waters of the Delaware, 
as on a charmed element, suspending the joy- 
ous inmates of the tiny craft as if in mid-air 
between the towering mountains of the Kitta- 
tinny. 

But the canoe is no more, and the natives 
have disappeared. Only the curiously wrought 
arrow-heads, their tomahawks and stone pes- 
tles, remain to show that they had ever been 
inhabitants here. 

George's father used to relate to his boy va- 
rious scenes of blood and slaughter enacted 
by the savages in his own neighborhood, the 
most terrible of which was perpetrated in 1755, 
during the descent upon the whites of some 
two hundred Indians under that apostate Mo- 
ravian, Teedyuscung. Edward Marshall, who 
accomplished the great Indian Walk, by which 
the Indians were cheated out of a vast hunting- 
ground, lived, at this time, at or near the present 
village of Slateford. Though Marshall was not 
to blame for the Walk, for he did it as a hired 
man, though he never received the five hun- 



50 THECENTENARIAN 

dred acres of land promised him, still the In- 
dians remembered the part he had taken upon 
himself, and they determined to retaliate. They 
fired on a company attending a funeral, on the 
road just below his house, killing none, but 
driving most of the settlers across the river. 
The burying-ground was on a high bluff, just 
back of the lime-kilns at Portland. That old 
grave-yard is still to be seen there, with old 
headstones of common sandstone and slate, 
with dates reaching back to 1764. Not to be 
foiled, the Indians, or a party of them, sur- 
rounded the house of Marshall, who was not 
at home. They shot his daughter as she was 
trying to escape, the ball entering her right 
shoulder and coming out below the left breast : 
yet she got away from them, and recovered. 
They took Marshall's wife, who was not in 
condition to make a rapid flight, some miles 
with them, and killed her. They had attacked 
Marshall's house in 1748, and then killed one 
of his sons. Though thirsting for Marshall's 
blood through many years, yet they seem to 
have always feared him, and usually undertook 
their bloody work when he was from home. 
They never gained their object, for, though he 
had many hairbreadth escapes, he finally died 
a natural death, after attaining an old age. 
These occurrences took place only a few years 
before the birth of George, but were told him 



OF MONROE COUNTY. 5I 

when yet fresh in the memory of his father 
and of his neighbors. 

During the boyhood of George the only mill 
for grinding was across the mountain, and 
thither all the grain was carried, on horseback, 
for the Mount Bethel region. Those from the 
more southern part of the settlement went to 
Easton for the same purpose. The corn was 
generally pounded in mortars, as was the cus- 
tom with the Indians. As the mill was so in- 
convenient, George's father frequently set him 
to pounding up the wheat also. The large 
mortar his father had made, but the pestle was 
obtained of the Indians. It was a dressed 
stone, about two feet long, and about three 
inches in diameter. For bolting the wheat he 
made two rough sieves, one finer than the other, 
and the flour came out a kind of Graham, which 
made good healthy bread. 

There was no road through the Water Gap 
at this time, and many were the trips made by 
George, on horseback, over the mountain, by 
way of Tat's Gap, to Stroudsburg, to mill. He 
always waited until his bagof wheat was ground, 
and then made his way back. It took the whole 
day to make the round trip, and, unless the 
clever miller asked him to dine with him, 
George was a hungry boy when he returned 
home. There was no store nearer than Easton. 
One mile north of Martin's Creek — named 



52 THE CENTENARIAN 

after Colonel Martin of the Revolution — was 
the ancient Bethel Church, (from which came 
Mount Bethel,) of which the zealous David 
Brainerd was the founder. At this place he 
built a rude cabin-parsonage, and made it his 
headquarters while laboring, far and near, for 
the spiritual welfare of both whites and Indians. 
At the time of which we WTite, a meeting- 
house, built of logs, had just been set up at 
Williamsburg. It has long since passed away, 
with the congregation. On a recent visit to 
its old grave-yard, I found a stone noting a 
death in 1750. 

A ferry was started at a very early day, by 
one Dill, and called for a long time Dill's 
Ferry. This place has since been called 
Decker's Ferry, Mount Bethel, and Port- 
land. We are waiting now for it to be named 
again. The place seems to have suffered for a 
name ever since the first true name of Dill's 
Ferry was discarded. It was at this place that 
the people of Mount Bethel met to rejoice, with 
those on the opposite side of the river, over the 
-victory of the American arms in the Revolu- 
tion. At this time there was quite a settlement 
on the Jersey side of the river — the timid ones, 
who had come up to the front in earlier days, 
and then, for more personal security, placed 
the river in front. But the Pennsylvania set- 
tlement was always preferable, on account of a 



OF MONROE COUNTY. . 53 

better soil. The wooded region south of the 
Blue Ridge, on the Jersey side of the river, 
was George's early favorite hunting-ground, 
and many a deer and bear he has there brought 
down, and carried on his back to his home on 
the other side of the river. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

RUSTIC LIFE. 

Inured to sternest life of toil. 
Which to no danger showed recoil, 
The sire transmitted to the son 
The hardy nature he had won. 

INHERITING the strong characteristics of 
his stern ancestors, whose lives of toil, pri- 
vation, and self-reliance had helped them to 
surmount every difficulty that a frontier, wil- 
derness life of trial and danger could possibly 
throw across their way, young George grew up 
a robust lad, skillful with his gun, or with oxen 
and wooden plow. The rude shanty, first 
planted by his grandfather, had been replaced 
by a house comparatively modern, and con- 
tentment bloomed upon a home quite as happy 
as the most refined of to-day. The school- 
master had not entered this part of Pennsyl- 
vania, and a thousand indispensable blessings 



54 THE CENTENARIAN 

of the nineteenth century were then unknown, 
and consequently not longed for. The labor 
of the field was his employment, and his gun 
and fishing-rod his amusements, which were 
turned to good account in furnishing supplies 
for the table of wooden plates and spoons. 
Health glowed upon his countenance and 
cheerfulness from his heart. His wants were 
few, and on himself he depended to gain them. 
By the blazing fire, in the long winter nights, 
his father would interest his boy with accounts 
of perils and dangers among his red neighbors. 
To him was pointed out the place, but a mile 
distant, where a family was butchered for some 
trivial offence by the mad savages. The fam- 
ily muskets were kept loaded and primed for 
many long years, ready for any emergency that 
might arise. 

Others of the persecuted from beyond the 
broad Atlantic kept coming in, from year to 
year, until " Hunter's settlement" became, com- 
paratively, quite a populous region, and the 
Indians began to suspect that their safety lay 
north of the Kittatinny Mountain. The origi- 
nal name of Hunter's settlement was finally 
replaced by Mount Bethel, which name it has 
retained ever since. This settlement was 
planted very early at three points, near Mar- 
tin's Creek, at Richmond, and at Williamsburg, 
probably about 1730. 



OF MONROE COUNTY. 55 

When those places were first settled, it was 
only the most daring who ventured to strike 
boldly out and plant themselves in the very 
midst of their wild neighbors. This the 
La Bar family had done at the very first move 
of the French immigrants. 

As George was now growing up to manhood, 
he found many leaving their village block- 
houses to settle around his father's plantation, 
to clear the land and till the soil. Peace, plenty, 
and comfort beget happiness and contentment, 
and the wilderness became, very soon, com- 
paratively joyous and glad. 

The Indians had fallen gradually back ; the 
terrible fires which had previously swept from 
the mountains to the river, killing or stunting 
the trees and presenting a vast barren, black- 
ened picture, that had been repictured every 
year, were becoming less frequent, and the 
wooded scene was putting on new beauty and 
freshness. The mountains at that time were 
barren and naked, and the patches of large trees 
which we now find on the low grounds in 
Mount Bethel, have all grown up within the 
one hundred and ten or one hundred and 
twenty-five years since the Indians ceased to 
burn the woods to rout out their game. 

But society thickened around, and that social 
intercourse, which adds so much to human 
happiness, brought forward that "good time" 



56 THE CENTENARIAN 

when their happiness was all that could be de- 
sired. George thought he was living in a 
favored day, enjoying blessings which his 
grandfather knew nothing of when he first 
came to this country. In fact he could hardly 
see then what could be added to his privileges. 
He has seen an improvement since. 

"Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise." 

The La Bar family had multiplied already so 
that there were several Johns and four or five 
Georges. The father George was called " lit- 
tle George;" our George was "curly George;" 
there was a "big George" and a "faithful 
George," all living in close proximity. 

Old Samuel Pipher moved into the neigh- 
borhood about eighty years ago. He was a 
very pleasant Dutchman, and the young folks 
of the neighborhood used to gather at his 
house frequently to have a good time. At 
that time there was a good deal of open-air 
exercise in the. field and of open-air sport 
wherever and whenever young people could 
get together. 

John Staples came to this country from Eng- 
land, on that tea-vessel which created such a 
stir around Boston Harbor in 1773. He had 
an interest in the cargo, until he saw it dumped 
into the water, when he became more interested 
in the people who had become so exasperated 



OF IVIONROE COUNTY. 57 

by the oppressive acts of his Government as to 
inflict a great loss upon individuals. He came 
to Pennsylvania and joined the American army 
as a private. He fought through the war, and 
was then offered the office of colonel, which he 
declined, on the ground that the position had 
not been offered before. 

After the war. Staples settled above the 
mountain, near Bossard's, raised a very large 
family, lived to a ripe old age, and when he 
died his descendants numbered hundreds. 
To-day, the Staples family number thousands. 

Joseph Drake was prominent in the Revolu- 
tion, and his father, John, w^as an early settler 
north of the Blue Ridge. The Drake family 
are numerous now in Monroe County. 

John Fenner was a Revolutionary patriot, 
from Mount Bethel. His father lived just 
above Easton, on the Jersey side, having set- 
tled there at an early day, and there he died. 
Nearly all the descendants pushed up into 
what is now Monroe County, and this stock 
does its share in forming the population of the 
county. 

David Bush was also an early settler above 
the mountain, and, despite the general clear- 
ing up of the country, the Bushes flourish lux- 
uriantly. 

Antoine Dutot, a Frenchman, was driven 
from Hayti, during the insurrection there, in 



58 THE CENTENARIAN 

1794. He was a man of property, having 
owned a large plantation, but he was glad to 
escape with his life. He got separated from 
his wife, and landed at Philadelphia without 
her. Being a Frenchman, and acquainted with 
Stephen Girard when he was a resident also 
of Hayti, he assisted Dutot, and induced him 
to go up the river and settle in Pennsylvania. 
He finally located himself at Delaware Water 
Gap, purchasing here a large tract of land, which 
he laid out for an extensive inland city. But, 
alas for the great city! its founder was too 
superficial, and built such temporary houses 
that not one of them is standing to-day. 
Dutotsburg had to be rebuilt, and the city is 
not. Dutot built roads and streets where roads 
and streets were not wanted by anybody but 
himself; and, though a busy, enterprising man, 
his judgment and his labor proved but failures. 

Antoine was a gay old Frenchman, with a 
romantic taste, while his ruffled shirt, his silk 
stockings, and his silver knee-buckles, with his 
broadcloth, were faultless ; but his slaves were 
not the slaves he had in Hayti, nor was the 
product of this soil at all tropical. The out-go 
was sure, but the income was treacherous. 

Dutot supposed his wife had been slaugh- 
tered in the great massacre on the island, and 
when he came to Water Gap, he looked upon 
himself as a widower. He had been here over 



OF MONROE COUNTY. 59 

two years, and had already made considerable 
progress in the way of making a choice for an- 
other helpmeet. The past dark, dangerous, 
and mysterious scenes through which he had 
passed, had become somewhat hidden by the 
new light of promise that shed its joy around 
him. Even the great wealth he had been 
forced to quit so hurriedly, to be appropriated 
by the French negroes, and the gold he had 
buried in the hope of returning to that island 
again — all this was gradually losing its hold 
upon his mind. It don't take a Frenchman 
long to forget the past, when the future is lit 
up with promise. The day was fixed when he 
was to have a wife to call his own again, and 
there were no French negroes here to kill an- 
other wife. He was safe now, and would be 
henceforth. Only one day more, and the de- 
sired knot shall be tied! Just in time! The 
original Mrs. Dutot was not killed! She has 
found her husband, and the marriage is indefi- 
nitely postponed. 

Among the names of early settlers, not al- 
ready mentioned, in Mount Bethel, are those 
of Mann, Beck, Miller, Allen, Kennedy, Mus- 
selman, Kuntz, Frey, Detrich, Meyers, Schnei- 
der, Frederick, etc. 



6o THE CENTENARIAN 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE REVOLUTION. 

A dark cloud rises from the East, 

The red men claim the West, 
A patriot few, than all the least, 

Resolved to make the test ; 
Resolved, in God, to strike to be 
A nation separate and free ! 

Though some a timid faith might show. 

And linger in the rear, 
A larger number asked to show 

What might be founded here. 
Assured the Right must win, succeed, 
When patriots dared to fight and bleed ! 

AND now lowered the war-clouds of the 
Revolution, and with these came trouble, 
commotion, and trial. Not that these settlers 
did not love their chosen country sufficiently 
to go forth to defend their country's honor; but 
that this going forth left their homes, especially 
in this county, too often exposed and unpro- 
tected from the arm of their red-skinned neigh- 
bors, while it took, also, the laborer from the 
field and cut off the supply of game from the 
woods. George was now twelve years of age, 
and he well remembers the opening days of 
that bold and daring undertaking which would 
presume to measure arms with Great Britain. 



OF MONROE COUNTY. 6l 

No people but the hardy pioneers of America 
and their sons would, for a moment, have 
harbored such a wild and hazardous purpose. 
But the strong physical man exhibited the 
same strong will and mind that nobly 
dared to do or die. Oh, what terrible surgings 
between hope and despair, again and again, 
lifted up or sank the American heart! How 
deeply was every family interested in the 
doubtful contest! A small people, without 
means, without prestige in any other war 
except that which necessity forced upon them 
in defending themselves against a race of 
natives who were exasperated by the wrong 
dealing of the white leaders — without anything 
except right and a strong will. David attack- 
ing the giant, and the pigmy prevails ! 

George was too young to philosophize upon 
the probable result of an armed resistance to 
British authority; and, as he heard the thunder- 
ing of the cannon in the distance, he would have 
liked nothing better than to have been in the 
front with his father's musket. Boy as he was, 
he knew how to level his gun to tell upon his 
mark. But they said he was too young. His 
father looked upon the rebellion as premature 
and unwise. He thought the colonies too 
weak, as yet, to resist the arm of the mother 
country, and that the mad undertaking would 
but result in a heavier oppression and tyranny. 



62 THE CENTENARIAN 

He had had a broken leg, and to this he looked 
for an excuse to keep him out of the American 
army. Not that he was opposed to the Yankee 
cause, but because he considered it hopeless, 
he would have nothing to do with it, if he 
could have his own way. 

The ''game leg" did not seem to interfere 
with the busy inclination of its possessor, for 
his locomotive powers seemed to be unim- 
paired. He could chase a deer or an Indian 
with wonderful agility. This fact led the new 
authorities to suspect there was too much 
"game" in the leg. Accordingly, it was re- 
solved to try him, as the following incident 
will show: 

One day, George was with his father, not far 
from the house, splitting rails. A stranger, in 
citizen's dress, came to him, and told him he 
was a spy from the British army, and asked to 
stay with him all night. His father said he 
never turned anybody off who wanted a night's 
lodging. It was near night, and they went to 
the house. Soon after entering, the pretended 
British spy, looking out a crack of the door, 
said the Yankees were after him, and asked 
where he should go. The father said he could 
go up stairs. George's mother said, " No ! get 
out door, and be off" A moment more, and a 
half-a-dozen Yankee soldiers, in uniform, came 



OF MONROE COUNTY. 63 

in ; the spy had played his game, and La Bar 
was pronounced a Tory. He was at once 
arrested, leg and all, and taken, that night, 
to Easton. 

George's mother was greatly troubled that 
night, and he, to comfort her, told her he would 
follow him in the morning, and offer himself to 
take his father's place. But she knew his gen- 
erous offer would not be accepted, nor would 
such a substitute afford her the desired relief. 

Early the next morning, Mrs. La Bar set out, 
on horseback, for Easton, whither she supposed 
her. husband had been taken. Arriving there, 
she found he had been bailed by Squire Levis 
and Abraham La Bar, a cousin, who soon after 
was a colonel in the Revolutionary army. She 
succeeded in proving the leg unfit for military 
duty, and the man was permitted to take it 
home again, to the joy of the woman and the 
satisfaction of the children, who had been left 
alone at home. 

A short time after this, his horses were seized 
by an officer, and taken to Squire Depui's, at 
Shawnee. He got his horses by swearing alle- 
giance to the Government of the United States. 
Another horse was captured by one John 
Herring, who seems to have assumed his own 
authority for so doing. This horse was never 
returned, and never paid for. Free speech 
and a high-tempered disposition, with an inch- 



64 THE CENTENARIAN 

nation to retaliate, had the same effect now 
upon those who were heart and soul in sym- 
pathy with the rebel cause, to create enemies, 
just as the Indians were made so before. The 
senior George La Bar was called a Tory for 
these reasons. 

Fire-arms were scarce in the Revolution, and 
a requisition was made, early in the war, for 
all such arms to be brought forward for the 
emergency. La Bar could spare one or two 
old shot-guns, but his own tried musket he 
kept for a long time, hid in a hollow tree in 
the woods. Was he to blame for this, when 
much of his meat had to be brought out of the 
woods ? 

Northampton County had so long been the 
battle-ground in the Indian troubles, that the 
settlers were heartily sick of blood and carnage ; 
and when the Revolution opened, very many in 
the county resisted the measure to the utmost. 
It was with the greatest difficulty that they could 
be brought up to take the oath of allegiance to 
the new Government. Many "skedadled" to 
Jersey rather than submit to what they con- 
sidered a rebellion that would soon be crushed. 
A few joined the Indians, and Tories were 
skulking everywhere, to keep out of reach of 
the authorities. 

Some were arrested, and carried to Easton. 
The citizens begged that such prisoners might 



OF MONROE COUNTY. 65 

be taken to Philadelphia, or to Reading, as 
they feared a descent might be made upon that 
town by the sympathizing multitude of Tories. 

In none of the confederated colonies, per- 
haps, were the Revolutionary patriots placed 
in such trying circumstances as those of North- 
ampton County. They had enemies in front 
and rear, and none but the truest could stand 
such a test. 

July 1st, 1776, the whole land force of Penn- 
sylvania consisted of one thousand four hun- 
dred and thirty-two men. The British lion in 
front, Indians and Tories in the rear! surely 
there was ground for doubts. To us, at this 
time, there would seem to be no hope, no ray 
of promise. It was like cutting loose from a 
stanch ship in mid-ocean, when fog and dark- 
ness were thick and foreboding, to trust in a^ 
tiny lifeboat with only an oar! 

But the tiny little lifeboat was cared for by 
an overruling Providence, and safely, gloriously 
guided into the desired haven of peace and se- 
curity. The new flag was planted triumphantly 
on a free soil, and a glowing future awaited the 
new Republic. The first step in the grand ex- 
periment had proved a success fully up to the 
hope of the most sanguine. The corner-stone 
was well laid, and the great Temple of Liberty 
began, at once, to go up toward a grand and 
symmetrical building. 



66 THE CENTENARIAN 

The sacrifice had been great, but the promise 
of the future amply satisfied all. A new country 
of free people, away from the contaminating 
influence of kings and emperors — a people 
governing and being governed by themselves, 
without any grade except the grade of honest 
worth and manly purpose, where the highest 
point of honor was open to the humblest sub- 
ject. The like had not been known in modern 
times, and the world looked on with wonder 
and astonishment: the common w^orld rejoiced 
and took courage. 



CHAPTER X. 

AFTER THE WAR. 

At length, despite the long delay, 
The smoke of battle cleared away, 
To cheer with a more perfect day; 
And patriot hearts now joyed indeed : 
The war was o'er, their country freed, 
And not in vain did any bleed. 

YES, the Revolution was over, and there 
was general rejoicing. Even the doubters 
were glad, although they had tried not to help 
to such an issue. They did not like the name 
of Tory, and denied its application to them, 
because they were not at heart against their 
country, nor especially in favor of British 



OF MONROE COUNTY. 67 

power, but they considered the movement un- 
wise and without hope. They were glad that 
the British had been defeated, but their re- 
joicing was a quiet joy, for the shame that they 
had taken no hearty part in the great work put 
a muzzle upon their mouths as a very natural 
consequence. 

Meetings of rejoicing were held all over the 
confederated colonies, and there was such a 
meeting at Dill's Ferry, and George was there. 
If he could not battle for victory, he could re- 
joice with those who had fought and won. " It 
was a high old time." 

George was called the son of a Tory, and a 
rough neighbor seeing him, and being excited 
with a combination of joy and of anger, drew 
up his gun, pointed it at the young man, and 
said, "Get away, you young Tory, or I will 
shoot you down." More sober-minded men 
interfered, and the fatal shot was not fired. 
There may have been too much whisky, but 
the joy was sincere, for it penetrated to the 
very marrow of the inside man. The day had 
been so long and so dark, the struggle had 
been so desperate and painful, the victory so 
barely won, that, altogether, it made a most 
hearty joy and thanksgiving. 

But the war was over, and the people were 
poor, the country poorer than before the war, 
many lives had been lost, a paper money 



68 THE CENTENARIAN 

almost worthless, many crippled and maimed 
for life, many widows and orphans — yet, to 
cover all this was Liberty, and the rejoicing 
was for this. The very name of Liberty had 
a signification it never had before. There 
beamed from the fair name a halo of light and 
love and blessedness that could be felt and 
seen. Well might there be unbounded joy 
over a noble aim so nobly achieved. 

Thankful should we be to-day that the fruit 
of their labor yet continues to grow, to bless 
their descendants, though almost a century has 
elapsed since they went forth to battle for the 
right. May centuries yet to come show the 
same holy trust faithfully preserved, to be 
handed down, on and on, to the latest genera- 
tion of time ! 

George senior, after accumulating a good 
property in Mount Bethel, and after rearing a 
large family, took it in his head to go West in 
his old age. About the year 1808 he sold out 
the most of his property to his son Isaac, loaded 
up his wagon, and set out for the long drive 
to Ohio. He was then about eighty-five years 
old. He had a good team of horses, and his 
wagon was arranged to be his hotel on the 
road. He took his wife with him, but left all 
his children behind. As he had more than 
one load of goods to take along, he hired 
George junior to take his team and wagon, and 



OF MONROE COUNTY. 69 

go with him. It was no small matter to move 
to Ohio then. It was a long, tedious drive, 
over very bad roads, with very few bridges. 
But it had been done, and he would do it. His 
friends tried hard to talk him out of such an 
expedition in his old days; but his strong self- 
will prevailed, and they started. Crossing the 
mountains through Tat's Gap, the old man 
turned to look upon his old homestead for the 
last time; but no feeling of regret touched his 
hard old heart, for, instead of a blessing, he 
pronounced almost a curse upon it as his eyes 
turned from it forever. 

It took two weeks, through an almost un- 
broken wilderness, to reach the point aimed for 
— two long, tedious weeks of shaking and jolt- 
ing, with the camping by the way. But the stern 
old man reached Ohio, and was satisfied. 
George remained a few days, and, after an- 
other two weeks' drive, reached his home aeain. 

The old man lost his wife when he was 
ninety-eight, and, when one hundred, he mar- 
ried again. At one hundred and five he died, 
a poor man ; but he died where he wished to 
die, and was buried in the soil of Ohio. 



70 THE CENTENARIAN 

CHAPTER XL 

A VISIT TO THE CENTENARIAN. 

"A relic -hunting I would go." 

IN the summer of 1869, having a desire to 
shake hands and to exchangre thousfhts 
with one whose history reaches back past a 
century, I set out, early one morning, to grat- 
ify this wish. Taking a train at the Water 
Gap, I soon arrived at Spragueville, the near- 
est railroad station to the point I had in view. 
Obtaining the proper directions, I found I had 
a three-mile walk before me, through a broken, 
wooded region, the principal product of which 
was railroad ties, cord-wood, bark, hoop-poles, 
and rocks. The rocks are what is termed in 
real estate "fast property," and they are really 
abundant, so much so, that I found they were 
permitted to lay about fast and loose, regard- 
less of the danger of being appropriated by 
trespassers, who do " hook on " to some of the 
other products of the country. 

But I had begun my three-mile travel to- 
ward my destination over a "back road," which 
in Pennsylvania English means a road that 
supervisors never expect to work down below 
the smoothness of a magnified grater. This 



OF MONROE COUNTY. 7I 

road was made for oxen, mules, and pedes- 
trians like myself, and I pressed on, too much 
concerned about my footing to become espe- 
cially poetical by the music of the birds singing 
around me, or by the wildness of the scenery 
which touched so pointedly the toe of my boot, 
to the sudden shaking of the corporeal and the 
mental. Between these jars I did manage to 
wonder why Nature had not scattered some 
of this surplus hardness out on prairie-land, 
for the building of cellar-walls and the like. 

Those three miles were long, but I got over 
them, having passed but one human habitation, 
and I now discovered a "clearing" which looked 
quite farmlike ; at least, it so looked in the dis- 
tance. Just before me, and close by the woods 
from which I had emerged, surrounding a 
small one-story house, I saw what reminded 
me of " Oysters in Every Style." There were 
stone out-buildings, stone fences, stone stacks 
around stumps, stone paths, stones round and 
flat, stones in rows, and stones lying around 
promiscuously. 

In that little house, with such a hard sur- 
rounding, lives Mr. George La Bar, who is now 
i n h is one hundred and seventh year I Though 
I wondered at the profusion with which Nature 
had here strewn the earth with rocks and stones, 
I wondered more at his choice, who, nearly 
fifty years ago, had chosen such a spot to labor 



72 THE CENTENARIAN 

and toil upon, in order to build a home for him- 
self and family. After I had heard his story 
of ups and downs in life, I suspected he had 
tired of his kind, who had dealt roughly with 
him, and he then sought out a place in the wil- 
derness, with the least possible temptation for 
any to settle near enough to crowd him again. 

I had been cautioned by some of the old 
man's relations against being too fast in my 
efforts for a good, long, free talk. So, when I 
knocked at the door, I thought I knew just how 
to do it. I entered, where I had never been 
before, introduced myself as best I could, and 
began talking with the aged daughter, who, with 
two or three of //<?r grandchildren, lives with the 
old father. Some of these great-great-grand- 
children are adults. The old man has never 
been dependent upon his children or his chil- 
dren's children, and is not now, for he keeps 
his own house and his own table! Since the 
time when man's term of life was shortened to 
threescore and ten, was the like ever known? 
Never in the history of man ! 

Mr. La Bar sat before the embers smoulder- 
ing in an open, old-fashioned fire-place, and 
took but little notice of me, having merely 
raised his head when I came into the house. 
In order to approach the old gentleman as 
gently as possible, I had been directing my 
conversation for some moments toward the old- 



OF MONROE COUNTY. 73 

lady daughter, and, after waiting in vain to 
have him address a word to me, I turned to 
him and said, "Well, Mr. La Bar, how do you 
do?" Quick as thought he answered by 
saying, " I am doing well enough." This was 
a settler which knocked all my cautious ar- 
rangements into pi ! But, not to give up the 
field, I backed up and tried it again with an- 
other question, when he began to ask in return, 
and the ice — or stone — was broken, and I 
drew him into a sociable conversation. This 
had been much more interesting had he been 
more familiar with dates. He has lived all 
these years without any education except ex- 
perience. As is usual with such persons, his 
memory is his store-house record, and it is full 
of reminiscences of the past, though not always 
reliable in regard to dates. 

He is a hale and hearty old man even yet, 
and looks more like a man of sixty-five or 
seventy than one who has numbered his five 
score and six years. That flabbiness of skin 
and muscle which is peculiar to most aged per- 
sons is an exception in his case. His cheeks 
are as smooth as my own of forty years, and 
the backs of his hands exhibit the same un- 
usual feature. He is a man of medium height 
— he stoops slightly now, but I think he has 
always been round-shouldered — a full chest, 
broad shoulders, and tapers down to small feet 



74 THE CENTENARIAN 

and ankles and small hands. His head is well 
supplied with not the whitest hair, though his 
beard is white. The head is not large, with 
blue eyes, heavy eyebrows, cheek-bones some- 
what prominent, moderately high forehead, a 
nose slightly hooked, and, on the whole, a fair 
old face to look upon. 

He has always been a man of toil, always a 
farmer, a great hunter, as long as there was 
any game to be found in the mountains, often 
lying in the woods, wherever night might over- 
take him — he has thus slept in the woods 
since he was a hundred years old! — been sick 
only three times in his life, once with yellow 
fever, the camp fever, and once typhoid — al- 
w^ays a good eater, denying himself nothing, at 
any time, which his appetite craved. He has 
almost a voracious appetite for food now, 
always chewed tobacco, has smoked long, and 
smokes very frequently now. 

He has never been drunk, never intemperate, 
but, living through the time when the bottle 
stood on every family cupboard, he never 
showed himself "odd" in refusing to take an 
occasional glass. He never could be prevailed 
upon to drink when he was not thirsty, and he 
would not permit alcohol to exercise dominion 
over him. He says he always considered a 
man a fool who could be overcome by whisky. 
Temperance in eating and drinking was always 



OF MONROE COUNTY. 75 

his motto and his guide, though he confesses 
to intemperance in overwork and exposure. 
But temperance in the former enabled his 
physical system to bear up under the latter. 

Every day he takes exercise, even yet, with 
his axe, felling the trees in the woods for his 
old-times fireplace, and occasionally gets out 
railroad ties. During the summer of 1869 he 
felled trees and peeled, with his own hands, 
three wagon-loads of bark, which one of his 
youngest boys, a lad of sixty years, hauled to 
market for the old chopper! Not two years 
ago he was out hunting bees in the woods. 

After talking an hour or so, I went over to 
see one of his sons, who lives "on the farm," 
and when I returned I found the old man miss- 
ing. Inquiring for him, I was told he had 
"gone to the woods to chop!" That was just 
what I wanted to see ; so, taking the youngest 
great-great-grandson with me, I went over to 
the woods, some three-quarters of a mile dis- 
tant, where I tried to take observations from a 
distance; but his brood of dogs soon gave the 
alarm. I was observed, and came up at once. 
He excused himself for coming to the woods 
by saying he thought I had gone home. But 
I saw him chop, a thing I never expect to 
see another man do who has on his head one 
hundred and six years, and now well on an- 
other year I 



76 THECENTENARIAN 

Taking the old man by the hand to bid him 
good-by, I remarked that I had enjoyed my 
visit very much, when he surprised me by say- 
ing he would come down during the summer, 
and show me how to catch rock-fish from the 
Delaware. I took him, at once, at his word, 
and told him I would come up after him in a 
few weeks, to w^hich he agreed. After hearing 
several fish-stories, while he stood leaning on 
the handle of his axe, I left him, he returning 
to his home, and I wending my way back 
toward the depot. 

It was really wonderful to see a man of so 
many years wielding an axe. There seems to 
be no give up to him, and he is determined to 
be no idler, so long as he lives and is able to 
have it otherwise. In walking he uses merely 
a small stick, and this he always leaves outside 
the door when he enters the house. He has a 
more finished cane which he carries w^hen he 
goes from home. He says he looks upon him- 
self as one who has lived far beyond the usual 
bounds of human life, and he feels like one 
alone in the world, for all his old associates 
have passed away long since, many of them 
three generations .ago. He is ready and wait- 
ing, but must work while he waits. 



OF MONROE COUNTY. 77 

CHAPTER XIL 

BROTHER AND SISTER. 

We took a ride, one day, 

And then a walk ; 
I held the reins and led the way, 

'T was his to talk. 

A FEW weeks later I ran up to see the old 
man and make arrangements to have 
him come down and "show me how to catch 
rock-fish." Arriving at his house, I was disap- 
pointed to find him away fi-om home, he having 
gone on business to Stroudsburg. The old- 
lady daughter informed me that he had talked 
of his engagement, and that he would come 
with me at any time I might call for him. She 
said I must come with a horse and carriage, as 
he would not ride on the cars. So I set a day 
and returned home. 

At the appointed time I was at the old 
man's door again. Eight miles, and the latter 
part of the journey required careful driving. 
He was out enjoying the open air. The 
daughter soon had him "fixed up," and we 
were facing toward the Water Gap. It was a 
beautiful September day, and the old man en- 
joyed the ride finely. I think he must have 
known that I did not chew tobacco, for the 



78 THE CENTENARIAN 

first man we met he hailed for a chew. I had 
some cigars in my pocket, and these we appro- 
priated to add variety to the already odd pic- 
ture within the carriao^e. Arriving at the 
"Half-way House," the horse was thirsty. 
The old man said he was "dry" too. So I in- 
quired for the "best," and he took "some." 
Now I don't believe in the merits of whisky, 
but here was a man who had lived when every- 
body believed there 7uas merit in whisky, and 
I did believe it would not hurt him. I noticed, 
too, that he took a very small "smaller," and 
he said he always had drank only the smallers. 
He always had a mind strong enough to keep 
right-minded, and his great age proves that 
whisky had not robbed him of any of his days. 
Alas, how many have been robbed by it! 

But the horse was no longer thirsty, and the 
carriage inmates were no longer "dry," so, 
after lighting the inevitable cigar, we rolled 
onward. I never felt so honored in my life. 
Everybody and all his relations, on our way, 
greeted us with special notice and attention. 
We were "the observed of all observers." It 
may be a country fashion, but I took it differ- 
ently. Old Grandfather La Bar does not ride 
out often — he walks 2iVL^ works ; but everybody, 
far and near, has heard of the old centenarian, 
and all were anxious to see him. No one, in 
his right mind, can help respecting and even 



OF MONROE COUNTY. 79 

honoring extreme old age. This is very right, 
and it did me good to see it manifested, with- 
out an exception, by every one we passed. 

We reached our destination at a late dining- 
hour, and after showing my guest around, we 
sat down on the piazza to chat and smoke. 
Being called away from him a few moments, 
when I returned I found he was among the 
missing. Inquiring — for I had pledged my- 
self for his well-being and safe return — I learned 
he was seen "making tracks" toward the Gap; 
so I hurried on and soon overtook him, plod- 
ding hurriedly along about half a mile down 
the Gap road. He seemed much surprised to 
be overhauled so soon by me. I asked him 
why he had left me so hastily, and told him I 
expected him to remain all night with me. He 
said he thought he had plenty of time to walk 
down to his sister's, and as he had heard she 
was sick, he would go there, and stop with me 
when he returned. I told him he had better 
go back with me, and I would take him down 
in a carriage the next day. But he refused, 
and, as I was determined to be faithful to my 
trust, I walked with him. The sister he spoke 
of is the youngest of the family, a girl of eighty- 
six, who lives five miles from the Water Gap, 
near the place where he was born. So on we 
walked and talked, and I thought no more of 
rock-fish for the present. 



8o THE CENTENARIAN 

In about an hour we arrived at Slateford, 
three and a half miles. Here are some half- 
a-dozen old acquaintances, whose ages range 
from seventy-five to eighty-five years. We 
called upon old Mr. and Mrs. Hallet, Mr. and 
Mrs. Pipher, who could scarcely believe their 
own eyes. Oh, it did my heart good to see 
these old people meet ! Every word, every 
gesture, seemed to be so frank, so friendly and 
open-hearted. Tears of joy there were, and a 
shaking of hands that reached to the bottom 
of the soul ; and many honest words of truth 
and soberness, and life and death, were spoken. 
Very soon the whole village was gathered to- 
gether, and joy and gladness sparkled in every 
eye, while a true spirit of human kindness, 
good feeling, and fellowship could be read in 
every countenance more distinctly than by 
words. I was more than paid for my dusty 
walk, and felt even more honored than I had 
been in the earlier part of the day, while riding 
with my old friend in another county. 

While men are yet in middle life, and full of 
its business and anxieties, whatever be their 
social intercourse, we suspect that their whole 
heart and feeling are not in their expressions 
of kindly greeting ; but when we see the aged 
grasp each other by the hand, those who have 
outlived the more anxious duties of life, we 
know they mean just what they say. 



OF MONROE COUNTY. 8l 

We walked on, reaching the sister's about 
sunset, and there was joy again. She was not 
sick — she was working in the garden! I left 
the old brother and young sister, promising to 
come again at an early day, walked a short 
distance to the station, took the cars, and re- 
turned. 



CHAPTER XIIL 

OLD STORIES. 

Not many lives run smooth throughout, 

Unknown to loss or care, 
But heaviest burdens make those stout 

Who have the most to bear. 

AFTER a few days I went after my old 
friend with horse and carriage, and found 
him satisfied with his visit at his sister's, and 
ready to face toward home. We came past the 
old homestead of his earlier married life. 
Though he first lived a few years in the house 
with his father-in-law, yet here the most of his 
children were born, and some of them grew up. 
There, he said, he should have been satisfied ; 
there he should have remained. It was a snue 
farm near Slateford, The land was smooth, 
and produced well, but his boys thought the 
farm too small, and longed for more room, 



82 THE CENTENARIAN 

more land. He finally sold out, for four thou- 
sand five hundred dollars, with a view of going 
West, whither his old father had gone, but, gov- 
erned again by others, he did not go, and, 
finally, bought a large tract of land, with a mill 
upon it, in what is now Monroe County. It 
was called the Long property, and situated on 
the Analomink. At this time wheat was three 
dollars per bushel, and he thought milling 
would pay largely; but a depression in real 
estate followed, with a corresponding fall in 
grain. He had applied his four thousand five 
hundred dollars toward paying for the prop- 
erty, which left a debt of less than a thousand 
dollars. In spite of careful living and hard 
work, the debt kept accumulating until, after 
a struggle of eleven years, he was forced 
to sell, when he found himself with only three 
hundred dollars ahead. He rented for two 
years, and then bought two hundred and nine 
acres of ''back-wood land" for three hundred 
and nine dollars. On that is his home to-day. 
Like his grandfather, he now began right in 
-the woods to clear a place to raise his bread 
and to plant a home. But the grandsire was a 
young man, he an old man with grandchildren. 
Hard work followed, but he conquered, and the 
place now comfortably sustains his own family 
and those of two sons. It is a wonder that so 
heavy a loss of hard-won earnings had not dis- 



OF MONROE COUNTY. 83 

couraged and broken him down, and ended his 
days. But his iron will conquered, and he 
went forth but the more determined to succeed. 
And now, after an absence of only a week, he 
longs for the quiet of his home again. Thither 
we are bound, as he tells the story. 

As we drove up through the Gap he told me 
how well he recollected when there was only a 
bridle-path through the Water Gap. The set- 
tlers above and below the Gap joined together 
and made the road. He had helped several 
days himself to build the road, besides sub- 
scribing money for this purpose. 

At length we arrived at my own headquar- 
ters, and my guest sat down. He remained 
with me two days, and some of his reminis- 
cences told me at that time I will now retell. 

Joe Goodwin lived somewhere about Water 
Gap. He espoused the Indian cause, even to 
fighting with them against the whites. He 
liked the freedom of Indian life, and finally 
w^ent off with them, leaving his relatives be- 
hind. His brother Isaac had a different taste, 
and the Indians had to keep out of reach of his 
well-aimed musket. Isaac said his brother was 
no better than an Indian, and that he had found 
his proper associates. 

In time of the Indian troubles, Alaes Utt and 
a few others went out scouting for the " red- 
skins." Walking along, he heard a gun fired, 



84 THE CENTENARIAN 

but Still kept on his way. Presently he felt the 
blood trickling down under his clothes. Ex- 
amining himself, he found he had been shot by 
some lurking Indian, the ball having passed 
entirely through, under his right arm, close to 
his body. He felt the blood before he felt the 
shot. When the body is very hot from exer- 
cise or very cold from exposure, this is possible. 
Alaes went back, but the scout had found 
"game," and went on. 

Mr. La Bar was acquainted with Goodwin, 
Alaes, and with Adam Utt, his brother. Adam 
was one of George's favorite chums. They 
were both great hunters, and long after the In- 
dians had disappeared from this region, they 
have cabined in the woods, and hunted bear 
and deer for weeks in succession. Adam 
always carried a large wooden bowl and wood- 
en spoon with him on his hunting expeditions, 
and a coffee-pot. He would make his coffee 
over the camp-fire, and pour it in his bowl, 
break up bread in it, and then sugar it, when 
his meal was ready. If he had brought down 
his buck, venison was toasted by the fire, and 
added to the savory meal. 

Adam used to tell of a narrow escape from 
the Indians once on a time, near what is now 
called Spragueville. There were some half-a- 
dozen upon him before he knew it. Though 
not far from them when first discovered, he 



OF MONROE COUNTY. 85 

managed to dodge around through the laurels 
until, out of breath, he dropped behind a large 
rock, where, as they passed him in the search, 
he feared that they might hear the thumpings 
of his heart, which would not hold still. The 
rock that saved him still lies by the side of the 
road near the house of John Vanvliet. It was 
all woods there then. 

At another time, Adam was out hunting on 
the '* Cranberry Marsh," when he was attacked 
again by a large party of Indians. As they 
came up, he drew up his gun, and he saw one 
drop. He ran as far as his breath would carry 
him, and then hid in a thicket. They passed 
close by him, and he took an opposite direction 
and escaped. 




86 THE CENTENARIAN 

CHAPTER XIV. 

LIFE IN OLD TIMES. 

Those good old times of long ago, 

Ere Fashion reigned supreme. 
When naught was done for pomp or show. 

For less than it might seem. 

MR. LA BAR began to keep house at first, 
as we have said, with his father-in-law. 
It was a log-house of one story. There were 
two rooms below, with a huge chimney, of 
stone, in the middle of the house. In the fire- 
place of the kitchen was a sort of iron box, or 
stove, which was walled into the fireplace in 
such a way as to open even with the back part 
of the fireplace, and then extended out into the 
room on the other side. It was like an iron 
oven, had no place for pipe, but the smoke 
came out where the wood was put in, and 
thence up the chimney with the smoke from 
the fireplace. This was the first idea of a stove. 
Buckw^heat cakes were baked on this iron box 
in the opposite room from the kitchen ; so we 
see buckwheat cakes were invented early. The 
father-in-law had wooden plates, but George 
adopted the new fashion and had earthen plates. 
Pewter was the improvement on these for the 
next generation, and crockery the one following. 



OF MONROE COUNTY. 87 

A carpenter made a dresser, or cupboard, 
and a table for him, which are still in a good 
state of preservation, though upward of eighty 
years old. He had three or four splint-bot- 
tomed chairs, though benches were much in 
vogue. 

The staple diet was mush and milk and po- 
tato-soup. Mills were too scarce for bread 
more than once a week — Sunday. Game was 
generally brought in also for this day, and then 
the tea was brought from the woods or the 
garden. 

Women as well as men worked at clearinof 
new ground and all out-door work. In fact, 
the women would work on the " farm " while the 
men went hunting or fishing. We see woman 
had many "rights" then. The wages for har- 
vesting with the sickle was two shillings and 
sixpence, and women then had equal wages with 
men. This is the ''right" claimed now of the 
"degenerated race." There are other rights 
''too tedious to mention." 

Mr. La Bar was married in 1788, and in 1791 
the Pennsylvania Whisky Insurrection broke 
out. There was great excitement, and the 
trouble became so alarming that the President 
called for the militia. George was wanted to 
fight the "whisky boys," but he had the camp 
fever. Dr. Larby attended him. The doctor 
lived where Major Lamb lived, at Portland. 



88 THE CENTENARIAN 

He had been in the Revolution. Went west 
afterward, and died. 

The doctor packed George in salt (Is this 
what has preserved his old body so well ?) As 
soon as he could stand alone he went to Rich- 
mond to attend the appeal, where he was hon- 
orably excused. 

The "house tax" followed in 1798 as the 
next trouble. The excitement in Mount 
Bethel exceeded the whisky trouble. There 
was a very general resistance to the law 
throughout the whole county. It was a direct 
tax of the United States, and was levied on the 
number of windows, or the size and number 
of the panes of glass in the houses. The 
people took it as they had taken the British 
duty on tea, as an imposition and wrong. 
The assessors were boldly forbidden to act, 
under threats of personal violence. Men 
armed themselves to resist the hated law. One 
John Fries made himself conspicuous as a 
leader of the insurgents. But the difficulty 
was at length crushed. Fries was arrested for 
treason, found guilty, and sentenced to be hung, 
but was afterward pardoned by President 
Adams. Several others were found guilty of 
treason in a lesser degree, and spent terms in 
prison, when general quiet was again restored. 
George still lived with his father-in-law at this 
time. The house had two windows, and he 



OF MONROE COUNTY.' 89 

paid one dollar tax. It was paid in "stamp 
paper." Jacob Utt and Ed. Lowery were as- 
sessor and collector in that place. They did 
not try to collect the tax above the mountain. 

Mr. La Bar remembers very distinctly Gen- 
eral Sullivan's march to Wilkesbarre and 
farther up the Susquehanna. General Sulli- 
van started from Easton in 1779, to clear out 
the Indians from the frontier. He crossed the 
Blue Ridge through Wind Gap, cutting the 
road for his army. This road has been used 
ever since, having been changed very little 
from the old route. 

The Pennsylvanians as early as 1793 began 
to see the necessity of some better communi- 
cation with the settlements in the west end of 
the State, and with Ohio. 

The Whisky Rebellion was incited by the 
difficulty of pack - horse transportation. A 
farmer in Pittsburg could not by this means 
afford to carry wheat to Philadelphia, but he 
cottld make it into whisky, Avhen one horse 
could carry twenty -four bushels in alcohol. 
The tax touched their only means of exchange, 
and the farther west the more severely the 
effect was felt and shown. The canal question 
was agitated ; several companies were organ- 
ized; some short lines opened, and, in 1825, 
the work was begun, when, in a few years, a 
way was opened to the Ohio River, and pack- 



90 THE CENTENARIAN 

horse communication had had its day. The 
time soon followed when the canal was too 
slow for Yankee enterprise and progress. 

Mr. La Bar being at Easton, one day when 
General Washington was soon expected to 
visit that place, resolved to w^ait and see the 
Father of his Country. As the expected hour 
drew near, every flag in the place was flung to 
the breeze ; all the military of that region as- 
sembled to do honor to the man ; the cannons 
were loaded and primed, ready for a salute; 
the fifes and drums that had marshaled some 
of the same soldiers on the battle-fields of the 
Revolution, were waiting to strike joyful notes 
of welcome. 

At length, the little company of horsemen is 
seen coming in the distance. The cannons 
belch forth their harmless wads, and shake the 
earth as best they can, for that early day. 
The fife and drum keep silence no longer, while 
the glad populace ring out cheer after cheer. 

They enter the little town, and the joy and 
gladness is unbounded. It is no difficult mat- 
ter to distinguish the loved and honored guest. 
Tall, commanding, majestic, he sits on his 
white charger, "the noblest work of God." 
Were he not a man, he would be a king. But 
the man is superior to the king — stately, 
graceful, honoring, honored. Following him, 
on a black horse, is his black servant, whose 



OF MONROE COUNTY. 9I 

life is so wrapped up in a faithful service to his 
faithful master that, in studying to anticipate 
his wants, he barely notices what is going on 
around him. 

George Washington alights, and after the 
soldiers, the citizens take him by the hand. 
George shared the privilege of touching the 
great and good man, and was satisfied as he 
turned to his team, and was soon on his way 
homeward. 

The war of 181 2 followed. Mr. La Bar now 
lived on his own place at Slateford. The call 
was for men between the ages of twenty-one and 
forty-five. He was then forty-nine: had been v/ 
just too young for the Revolution, was too old for 
1812! He had a boy almost twenty-one years 
old. The Revolution had been a success when 
the whole population of the Colonies was about 
what that of the city of New York is to-day, 
and no one doubted the issue of 181 2. Every- 
body was confident of success, and there were 
no Tories to be found. This confidence allayed 
excitement, and the war went on as any man 
would now go forward with a large contract. 
The fighting-ground did not reach Pennsyl- 
vania, and business went forward unchecked 
during the war. Afterward there was a " tight- 
ness" followed, which affected the financial 
affairs of States and individuals. Specie al- 
most disappeared, and paper became quite 



92 THE CENTENARIAN 

worthless. But the end came at last, and 
prosperity and progress went onward. 

The two-days' visit ended. I suggested to 
my guest that it would be more comfort- 
able for him to accompany me to Spragueville 
on the cars, and from thence, three miles, by 
carriage to his house. He declined riding in 
the cars. He said he had got along so far in his 
life by walking or riding behind oxen or horses, 
that he had made up his mind not to put on 
steam now. I still tried to prevail on him to 
try the cars *'just once," but he said he wanted 
to see the road as he passed, and to have the 
reins close to him. I accepted the argument, 
and the carriage conveyed him safely back to his 
dear old home. 




OF MONROE COUNTY. 93 

CHAPTER XV. 

RELIGION AND POLITICS. 

All men, no matter what their state, 
Of the Supreme are taught innate: 

First God, their family, and then 
Their country — these the truest men. 

TOWARD the close of February, 1870, I 
went to visit my old friend again. I 
found him enjoying excellent health, and appa- 
rently in better condition than when I saw him 
in September. He recognized me at once, and 
there was no need of caution and reserve. 
There had been much sickness in that vicinity 
during the winter, but he, like an old, gnarled 
oak, had stood unscathed through all the un- 
usual changes of the season. His eye was 
bright and clear, his frame so steady and elastic 
that he used no cane while around the house 
or near the door. He is the wonder of him- 
self and all that see him. I have seen men of 
sixty, who exhibited more of the second child- 
hood than he. He chops a little wood at the 
door occasionally, and has been on the point 
of going to the woods to get out railroad ties 
this winter, but a sudden change of weather 
has prevented thus far. His eye looks so clear 
that I suppose a skillful optician could fit 



94 THE CENTENARIAN 

him with glasses with which he could see quite 
as well as ever; but then he cannot read, and 
he can see well enough for his purpose. He 
has a sturdy appetite, and nothing disarranges 
his stomach. He can eat anything any one 
can, but molasses is, and always has been, a 
staple part of his diet. Coffee and tea he has 
always used since these have been used in old 
Northampton. He still chews tobacco, as he 
always has, and his pipe is not neglected. He 
■ trembles very little under his load of years, and 
helps himself at the table as usual. He talks 
frequently of the God in whom he trusts. His 
faith is of the strongest character, reminding 
me of the patriarchs of Old Testament days. 

The blessing I heard him ask at his own 
table, I will here repeat: 

" Our Father in heaven, we thank Thee for 
this nourishment, provided for our weak and 
decaying bodies. Keep us from all evil. When 
done with us in this life, take us to dwell with 
Thee, for our Lord Jesus Christ's sake. Amen." 
After this, and in a lower tone, he said, " Lord, 
be with me this day." 

Mr. La Bar made no profession of religion 
until about twenty-six years ago. He was 
converted during a revival, under the preach- 
ing of Rev. Cullen, and was immersed by 

him, with some twenty others, in Marshall's 
Creek. He believed he was soundly converted, 



OF MONROE COUNTY. 95 

and he has continued in the faith. Stalbert 
preached in that vicinity about the same time. 
The nearest church is some three miles distant, 
and an appointment was made at the school- 
house close by. That good old veteran, Father 
Barrass, preached at this school-house every 
four weeks, for many years, until, last fall, he 
went to his reward. Grandfather La Bar has 
heard no sermons since. 

To illustrate the faith I have referred to, I 
will relate an incident which Mr. La Bar told 
me with that childlike earnestness w^hich dis- 
perses all doubt. 

About twenty years ago, there was a very 
great drought in this vicinity. It was in the 
latter part of the summer, and the corn was 
wilted and drooping; the buckwheat stood 
scorched and shrivelled. Even the leaves on the 
trees were, in some places, curling up and pal- 
ing. He had been contemplating the parched 
scene, when, thinking of patriarchal prevalence 
in prayer, he resolved to pray for rain. He 
got on his knees, in the open air, and prayed 
long and earnestly for the desired rain. Rising 
to his feet, he looked around and saw the 
scene unchanged. He fell down and prayed 
again; rose up, and yet no sign. He knelt 
and prayed yet again with all the fervency of 
his heart and the fullest faith. When he rose 
up, he looked for the expected cloud, and be- 



96 THE CENTENARIAN 

hold, it had risen! The blessed shower was 
coming; his prayer had been answered. Be- 
fore he reached his house, the thirsty earth was 
drinking in the refreshing draught. 

The shower lasted long, and was plenteous. 
The old man's heart was so grateful that he 
could scarcely contain himself He told his 
family he had prayed for the rain, and his 
prayers were answered. The shower con- 
tinuing long, one of his boys thought there was 
more than enough, and asked the old man why 
he did not pray for the rain to stop? The old 
man told him he might do that 

Now we will go back again to Hunter's set- 
tlement. The first voting -place for Mount 
Bethel was at Richmond. There Mr. La Bar 
V' voted for the first President of the United 

States, George Washington. He has voted at 
every Presidential election since that time, either 
in Northampton County or in Monroe, which 
w^as cut off the former in 1834. He has never 
lived outside the bounds of the original county 
in which he was born. It has been said that 
Northampton was chopped in two in order to 
suit the necessity of the rapidly expanding fam- 
ily of La Bars, who could see no better way to 
make two families of them than by stringing 
the Blue Ridge between them. 

But to the voting. George has ahvays voted 
the Democratic ticket, and rather glories in the 



OF INIONROE COUNTY. 97 

fact. He says, if there has been a change of 
base, it is not his fault. He has followed the 
true meaning of the word democracy, and that 
he considers good enough for an American 
citizen. But where is there another man living 
who has voted every time a President has been 
chosen since this has been a Republic? 

The first meeting-house erected north of 
Brainerd's Bethel Church was the old log- 
house at Williamsburg. Another was built 
soon after at Richmond, alias Rum Corner. 
Rum and religion, very frequently, went hand 
in hand in those days. The tavern and the 
church were early necessities, and were often 
planted side by side. A preacher who did not 
drink rum was an exception ; and no wonder, 
when every family was more careful to keep 
their rum-jug full than their jug for molasses. 
The head of the family would fill the glass be- 
fore breakfast, sweeten it to the taste of the 
children, pass it round to young and old, and 
then they were ready for the morning meal. 
The bad custom was so general that few sus- 
pected the evil. Mathews, Neimigher, and 
Clinkins were the earliest preachers of the 
vicinity. 

Most of the early settlers had come to this 
country on account of religious persecution; 
but the religion they brought with them was 
not over - zealous when opposition ceased. 



98 THE CENTENARIAN 

Under the circumstances, we would have sup- 
posed that the religious liberty now enjoyed 
would have burned in their hearts, and led each 
to a height of Christian love and ardor never ex- 
hibited to the world before. But it was not so. 
Their religion was cold and formal, and only 
grew as a stunted tree transplanted into an un- 
fruitful soil. It did seem as though persecution 
was necessary to a lively growth of religion. 
The day of sacrifice was past, and with it their 
best joy. 

The first school-house erected in the north- 
ern part of Mount Bethel was at Dill's Ferry, 
about where the tannery now is. It was a 
side-light that did not reflect far, but it was the 
beginning of better days. 

The first grist-mill was erected by Henry 
Forgeman. It stood about half a mile west 
of Williamsburg. Forgeman moved West soon 
after the Revolution ; and some years after, his 
son, William, with his wife, came from Ohio, 
all the way on horseback, to visit their old 
friends in Mount Bethel. 

The first store was at Williamsburg, by Jake 
Detrich ; but store-keeping did not amount to 
much then. Molasses, salt, and sugar had to 
be bought at the store, but the people could 
make their own clothing, rye-coffee, mush and 
milk, and spice-wood tea. 

After the township became divided, Wil- 



OF MONROE COUNTY. 99 

liamsburg became the voting-place, and a tav- 
ern appeared to meet the necessity! 

Moses Tatamy, an old Indian-hunter, had a 
cabin and lived close at the foot of the moun- 
tain at Tat's Gap, and thus the name that notch 
has always retained. 

The Indian name of Brodhead's Creek was 
Analomink, and this name it should have re- 
tained; though, next to that, its present name 
should have the preference, as Daniel Brod- 
head was the first settler who purchased land 
bounded by the creek for any considerable dis- 
tance. His tract reached from somewhere 
near Experiment Mills, on the north side, to a 
point near Spragueville. He settled there 
in 1737. 

Marshall's Creek was named after the noted 
pedestrian of the Indian Walk, Edward Mar- 
shall. 

McMichael's Creek was named after an early 
squatter, who was in bad repute with both 
whites and Indians here. 

Pocono Creek retains its proper Indian name, 
which Cherry Creek failed to do. 




lOO THE CENTENARIAN 



CHAPTER XVI. 

THE COMPARISON. 

Days come and go in constant flow — 

With noiseless steppings glide — 
But bars will shift and wash and drift 

Before the moving tide ; 
So when these days to years have run, 
To centuries, see we what is done. 

WE have been looking upon a man, still 
living, who had an existence when this 
part of Pennsylvania was the frontier, and the 
Indians were just about leaving this vicinity 
never to return. The war of the Revolution 
hurried on, bringing its burden of trial and 
trouble; but joy followed, for a new nation was 
born, the greatness of which none had faith 
enough to picture. This, too, sank into the 
past. Intestine difficulties rose and subsided. 
The new Government, adjusting itself to cir- 
cumstances, grew in strength and power. A 
grand Republic, established more as an exper- 
iment than to be a reality, was becoming a 
successful fact. Improvement and resources 
were developing, and the nineteenth century 
dawned. 

Then succeeded the w^ar of 1812, with all the 
train of ills peculiar to this mode of settling 



OF MONROE COUNTY. lOI 

difficulties between nations — and this, too, 
passed by. 

Another decade, and enterprise and progress 
went on anew. Men were beginning to live 
and do. Books were multiplied, and the arts 
and sciences advanced. Steam, as a working 
helper, was introduced. Communication by 
canal and turnpikes and other means of trans- 
portation were showing important results. 

Yet another decade, and the locomotive be- 
gan its mighty revolution and revelation. 
Civilization now took wonderful strides. The 
American Nation was reaching up to the 
level of the most enlightened and prosperous 
nations of the earth. Common schools and 
schools uncommon reached out to do good to 
all, and to spread the light. 

Another ten years, and the telegraph was 
born from the brain of an American. Steam- 
ship communication brought far-off countries 
comparatively nigh. Commerce reached out 
to all the chief ports of the earth. The war 
with Mexico w^as but the brushing away of an 
annoying fly. 

When half the century had passed, w^e were 
a great nation, of great wealth and enterprise. 
From about one million in 1763, now w^e num- 
bered about twenty-three millions of earnest, 
intelligent, wide-awake people. Books and 
periodicals flooded the land with light for the 



1 02 THE CENTENARIAN 

eyes and food for the mind. The great valley 
of the Mississippi is dotted with a busy popu- 
lation from its source to its mouth. From the 
Eastern States to that valley is one broad, cul- 
tivated field, thickly interspersed with thriving 
towns and cities. And still 

"Westward the star of empire takes its way." 

The magic picture is still changing and expand- 
ing, year after year, and the motto is " Onward." 

Another decade, and the tide of prosperity 
had been unchecked, but soon the war-trump 
sounded again. Vast armies responded, un- 
paralleled in numbers by anything seen in 
modern times, and the grandchildren of those 
who had fought side by side in the Revolution 
and in the war of 1812, were now arrayed in 
mortal combat against each other. It was a 
sickening picture; but the "accursed thing" 
was found upon us, and this was the means 
an overruling Providence ordered upon us to 
root out the evil. Those terrible scenes passed 
on and were numbered with the past, though 
their memory is so fresh in the minds of millions. 

And now the " numbering year " has come 
again. The telegraph lies at the bottom of the 
broad Atlantic, while from continent to conti- 
nent the thought-current talks intelligently and 
outstripping time. Upon the land the vast 
network reaches to the most secluded part of 



OF MONROE COUNTY. IO3 

civilization. Across the continent, and up and 
down, here and there and everywhere the iron- 
horse dashes away, developing and unfolding 
the greatness of this Great Land. And how 
many are we to-day — forty millions? Onward, 
onward ! 

All these stirring events, a living panorama, 
unpainted, seen, felt, experienced in a human 
life which still runs on! Wonderful, wonder- 
ful! Who can realize such a mighty sweep 
of real revelations? Two centuries and three 
quarters had passed since the discovery of 
America, and but little benefit had, as yet, ac- 
crued to the human family; but in the last one 
hundred and six years there has been a great 
making-up for all those previous years. 




I04 THE CENTENARIAN 

CHAPTER XVII. 

NUMBERS. 

"Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and sub- 
due it." 



T 



HE La Bar stock, commingling with the 
German, have well obeyed the injunction 
to Adam and Eve, and have shown a prolific 
family. The three pioneer French brothers 
now show a living progeny of about seven 
thousand two hundred! We have based our 
calculations on a seven-fold ratio of increase 
to obtain this number in four generations. 

If we take the family of Mr. George La Bar 
as a rule for the rest, we find he has ten chil- 
dren who have raised families, and his grand- 
children number about eighty. Now here is 
a ten-fold increase, after we throw^ away eight 
children as non-producing. He has a son who 
has about the same number of grandchildren. 
Mr. La Bar has had fourteen children in all. 
But, if we throw away three-sevenths for death 
and casualties, we will have four-sevenths, or 
eight of the fourteen left, as producing mem- 
bers. He had ten such, but wc will make eight 
the producing stock, and the result will show 
an army of twelve thousand two hundred and 



OF MONROE COUNTY. I05 

seventy. This may be too high, but we should 
remember that we have been counting but four 
generations, whereas there have been at least 
five generations since the original brothers 
went out from their bachelor cabin. 

Again, George's eight producing children in- 
creased by a ratio of eight, and we have sixty- 
four grandchildren; then throwing away the 
three-sevenths, we have four-sevenths, or thirty- 
seven left, w^hich, increased again by our ratio, 
we have two hundred and ninety-six great- 
grandchildren. Deducting and multiplying as 
before, we have thirteen hundred and sixty 
great-great-grandchildren, most of them yet to 
be! 

Of course, one-half of the La Bar descend- 
ants have many different names, coming from 
the female side, which is changed by marriage. 
I find the La Bar blood reaches into almost 
every family in Mount Bethel and Monroe 
County, and across the river into Warren 
County, New Jersey. 

George La Bar's oldest child was born in 
1 791, and is therefore seventy-nine years of 
age. He was married at twenty-one to a girl 
of thirteen. TJieir oldest child is now fifty-six. 
This is Mr. La Bar's oldest grandchild. The 
old son and his young wife are still living, 
having raised a large family. So it seems to 
be healthy for a girl to marry at thirteen. 



I06 THE CENTENARIAN 

Their oldest child is less than fifteen years 
younger than his mother, and his head is far 
whiter to-day than his old grandfather of one 
hundred and seven years. 

George La Bar is perhaps the oldest man in 
Pennsylvania. We have seen the hardy char- 
acter of his progenitors — that they were men 
and women always used to hardship, toil, and 
danger. Their food was of the simplest kind, 
and eaten to sustain life rather than to pamper. 
Their clothing was neither broadcloth, beaver, 
nor silk. Their cabins were always well ven- 
tilated, and the open fireplace, with the ** back- 
log" always burning, like an inverted funnel, 
sucked the fresh air through every crack be- 
tween the chinked logs. 

The grandfather and his two brothers 
brought with them their mother tongue, with 
a fair share of French politeness and education, 
but these soon wore out before the more prev- 
alent language of the men of the forest, and of 
the German settlers following, with whom they 
associated, and of whom they married. Polite- 
ness does not so grow into the bone and 
marrow of even a Frenchman but that it can 
become blunted by the adverse circumstances 
of a frontier life. 

Then, again, here were foreigners, coming to 
a new country, and joining hands and hearts. 
The first union was French and German, and 



OF MONROE COUNTY. I07 

then it was a mixture of American-born with 
most of the German element. Finally, after a 
few generations, both dropped the original lan- 
guages brought over the water, and adopted 
the English. All the descendants produced 
large families, and they have, generally, lived 
to a ripe old age. 

Now there is much written and said about 
"sanitary affairs," and a thousand "helps" are 
given to obtain a long life. One learned man 
has one hobby, and another has another, for 
the same object. My experience is that every 
person should be so well acquainted with him- 
self and his own system and nature, that he can 
choose for himself what is best for his own 
health, better than any one outside of that sys- 
tem, though he be the wisest M. D. that ever 
lived. How far this wisdom can carry us into 
the years to come, we know not. If we fail, 
the mistake will be upon us, and not in the 
mistake of a hired operator. Mr. La Bar was 
an unlearned man, and yet his instinctive taste 
chose well for him, and no philosophy ever led 
him to turn away from what nature asked in 
the way of taste and appetite. 



I08 THE CENTENARIAN 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

CONCLUSION. 

The aged pilgrim, as he stands 

And waits the parting wave, 
Looks over Jordan to that land 

Of bliss beyond the grave; 
Then with a longing heart he treads. 

As forth the pillar moves, 
And the cold stream no longer dreads. 

To reach the God he loves. 

MR. LA BAR has always been of a quiet, 
contented disposition, avoiding strife 
and contention, not easily excited, choosing to 
bear rather than resent. He always recognized 
a Supreme Being and an over-ruling Provi- 
dence, although he did not dedicate himself to 
the service of Heaven until he was eighty years 
of age. Since that time his life has been of 
the firmest trust and confidence in God, even 
experiencing in his own daily life that "all 
things work together for good to them that 
walk uprightly." Long waiting, it has always 
been with "Thy will be done," and with- 
out one lurking doubt of his acceptance. 
Trust — this it is that affords him that blessed 
peace of mind which enables him to look for- 
ward complacently, feeling that all is well, for 
he knows in Whom he believes. Death has 



OF MONROE COUNTY. IO9 

no terrors, for as Jordan parted when the ark 
of the covenant moved forward, o'er-shadowed 
by the pillar of cloud which gave the signal to 
go over, so he waits the beckoning of the 
angels, yet satisfied to wait. 

That waiting may continue for years, even 
yet; for his health is good, and there is no 
indication of an early breaking down of that 
strong body, which has borne up so wonder- 
fully under one hundred and seven years. 
He sleeps well, and rises early, as he always 
has been in the habit of doing. His mind is 
clear, and shows less of the " second childhood " 
than I have seen in some persons of sixty 
years. He says he has only turned back to 
the small figures, to go up the scale of boyhood 
again, and that he will soon be old enough to 
go to school. He is not troubled much with 
aches and pains, is contented and cheerful, 
enjoys life as well as ever. He is not a burden 
to any one, and never has been. 

What I consider as the most remarkable 
thing in Mr. La Bar's history, is the fact that 
he has never given up keeping his own house 
and his own table. He is of too independent 
a character to permit himself to become a 
dependent on his children, or any of their 
descendants, so long as he is able to have it 
otherwise. He is still "master of the situa- 
tion," and competent to rule his own house. 



no THE CENTENARIAN 

Most aged persons give up when they find 
their life-partner gone, but not so with him. 
His wife has been dead some thirty years, and 
all their children had gone out to do for them- 
selves many years before. 

Before I became much acquainted with the 
family, I asked Mr. La Bar if he had been mar- 
ried more than once. He said he had not; 
that he had had a good wife once, and, though 
tempted to marry again, he feared he might 
get a devil, and did not make the venture. I 
was satisfied with the answer. 

He says that though but a boy, he bore his 
part of the trouble of the Revolution, felt the 
anxieties of the Whisky Rebellion, and the riot 
of the house-tax ; passed the trying times that 
followed the war of 1812, and bore his part 
toward paying its debt; and, at last, after living 
through the Great Rebellion, he thinks this last 
"bounty tax" has nothing to do with him, and 
says he so told the collector. The collector 
said he would excuse him " next time." Uncle 
George thinks he will hardly wait to see 
another "onpleasantness" settled by the sword. 

Besides the young sister, aged eighty-six, 
spoken of before, Mr. La Bar has another sister 
living, aged about ninety-two, and a brother, 
living in Canada, who is about ninety-eight. 
This brother was down on a visit to George 
about two years ago. He is a smart old lad, too. 



OF MONROE COUNTY. Ill 

He presented George with a silver-mounted 
cane, which is highly prized, more especially 
for the giver's sake than for its real necessity to 
him. 

And now the "tale is told," and yet not all 
told, for the sands are still dropping, dropping, 
and the end is yet to come. Of that busy life 
which has numbered so many years, it is but 
the merest fraction of a whole that has had the 
slightest notice by my pen. Only in the great 
Judgment Day can the one hundred and seven 
volumes, of three hundred and sixty-five pages 
each, be read entire! No thought, no word, 
no action, has been lost; all have been re- 
corded ! When we take into consideration the 
restless activity of the mind; the perpetual 
throbbings of the human heart; the constant 
heaving and contraction of the chest,; the hun- 
dreds of muscles brought into exercise with 
every step we take, every action we perform ; 
the unceasing wear and repair — our wonder 
grows into amazement that so frail a body 
should ever be found to live to the one hun- 
dred and seventh year! 




